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Imaging The Sky Conference 2006
Affordable Dedicated Astroimaging CCD Cameras |
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ASTROIMAGING - ITS
Imaging The Sky Conference 2006
Affordable Dedicated Astroimaging CCD Cameras |
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The Imaging The Sky 2006 Conference was held on Saturday June 3, 2006 at Oregon Museum of Science and Industry (OMSI) Portland, Oregon USA. The conference had 68 attendees. The conference was organized by Mel Bartels, Richard Berry, Rick Kang and David Haworth. The conference was sponsored and hosed by Jim Todd, OMSI. Sean's Astronomy Shop was there and donated door prizes. A conference CD-ROM with presentations, reference materials and software was provided to each attendee.
Two imaging setups were show at the conference. One was a Meade DSI camera by Mike Hagen and the other was a Orion StarShoot Deep-Space Color Imaging camera by David Haworth.
Conference Feedback
I attended the ITS conference on Saturday at OMSI
What a great, great conference: Haworth, Berry and Carrico were outstanding. (Sandage, I suspect, was also outstanding, too but beyond my novice vocabulary, enthusiasms, and abilities). For me, however, the star of the show was Mike Hagen who showed the blemished, real-world results and amazing detail captured by a beginning imager in the middle of the metro light bubble.
The Imaging the Sky Conference was the best $45 astro-dollars I've spent. From it, I built a nice foundation of basic imaging knowledge, a set of realistic expectations and came away with a price tag to realistic expectations ratio was a lot lower than I thought.
Highly recommended and thank-you to all for a very, very high value conference,
--h
I second that.
Dave's was excellent also, assuming you knew just a little about imaging already.
Together, Richard's and the Dave's talks were the best introductory presentations I've ever seen (including my own). They went fairly fast and covered all the basics.
Even though this is my 10th conference, I learned a couple of things.
The highlight for me was a talk on photometry - real scientific data collection, something I intend to pursue in the near future - probably spectroscopy of stars.
I bumped into Harry Colvin who had attended the SAS conference and told me that professionals were there actually recruiting amateurs to obtain data for them. It seems as amateurs, we can devote more time to obscure observations than professionals that are under pressure to produce stuff in one and two year time frames for their grants.
George
Aloha
I agree about Richard and Dave H's talks - they were really perfect for the person thinking about getting started in imaging. They covered all the bases, set realistic expectations, and did so without getting bogged down in details. Very well done!
For those thinking about getting started who missed the conference, I'd highly recommend getting hold of the videos of their talks, or at least the Powerpoint files.
Dave S.
Thank for running another great program again this year. I really think the talks really worked well together to help people understand the end-to-end process of imaging, from traditional to low cost to DSLR, with a little science thrown in.
I really like the facilities. This is the best environment yet. I would vote to make it permanent (if I had a vote :-) )
Jonathan Fay
I'd like to strongly echo the positive sentiments of the others who have posted comments regarding the excellent "Imaging-the-Sky Conference" held at OMSI last Saturday.
Even though I've been getting bumped and bruised trying my own imaging, have attended the conference three years in a row, and I’m a Macintosh user, which set me apart with regards to much of the software discussed, I still learned a LOT, AGAIN!
I told David Haworth, that hearing the speakers talk about topics I face with each ensuing image, helps to place a fresh or alternative perspective to the challenge. I experienced several "ah-ha's", followed by the sound of palm-slapping-forehead, during the presentations. My strongest endorsement, is that I WISH I’d attended the "Imaging-the-Sky Conference" three times before I spent my first $ on imaging equipment. I’d have saved thousands of trial-and-error $’s and hours of frustration.
I want to collectively THANK ALL the event speakers, organizers, and participants, for providing such a valuable and informative event. It takes hundreds of hours to ensure excellence for such an excellent event, and the entire "Imaging the Sky" team performed outstandingly! I also like to thank the attendees for the helpful and insightful interchange, and for contributing to such a productive environment.
Lastly, thanks to Jim Todd, and OMSI for providing a centrally located venue. In my case, the OMSI venue meant I got to sleep in an extra 30 minutes Saturday Morning, which was VERY valuable for personal reasons. The AV facilities were excellent. My one vote for the Mt. Hood venue, is that the after-event viewing, and in-the-field demonstrations were a plus, since the skies are much darker than in the center of Portland.
My one suggestion for next year is for classroom-style seating with tables for taking notes and computers, vs. the "RCA Meeting", theater-style seating, which means your lap is your table. MY old lap doesn't have room for both a notebook and a computer. ;-) [No Jim I don't EXPECT A/C power to the tables, but if you insist, I won't turn it down. ;-) ]. In the future, perhaps a well-heeled benefactor will bless OMSI with a lecture hall, similar to Mt. Hood College.
Once again, too wordy, but all for an excellent cause...
Sincerely,
Steve Jaynes
Hi David. I attended the "imaging the sky" conference last weekend. I would first like to say thank You for the effort you put into this conference-It was fantastic!
Russ Paul
Conference Description
Large aperture telescopes extend an astronomer’s ability to observe fainter objects and fainter details.
And like wise, digital astroimaging provides the same benefit to the amateur astronomer.
Digital astroimaging provides an excellent way to observe new objects and fainter details with smaller optics.
Astroimaging extends an astronomer’s ability to enjoy observing the universe.
There are many types of cameras, lens, telescopes, mounts, filters and software programs that are used in astroimaging. This year’s conference covers a range of astroimaging and image processing techniques.
Image processing is key to extracting details out of astroimages. Sessions covered image-processing techniques that can be applied to a wide range of cameras. Image processing examples were shown using AIP4WIN V2 and other software.
Schedule
Other 2006 Imaging Conferences
