2000x1500pxls. One of my last unguided images with a WO GT71 and Fujifilm XT20, before springing big bucks for an ASIAIR and an ASI183MC Pro, along with a guider. 2.5 hours of 30s subs. SIRIL and GIMP.
No, but for an oddball reason… and not just because it was a high ISO noisy background on that image.
Specifically, I’m kind of weird, or more accurately very weird, about that topic. <begin uncalled for off-topic rant> SIRIL, which I really appreciate, now has StarNet++ built in as a plugin for star removal. But I haven’t used it. Because in my head there’s a difference between art and astrophotography.
AI programs like DALL-E are not too far from creating amazing astronomical art. In the next year or two I’ll be able to ask for an image of a magnitude 4 comet with a blue / white split tail to perfectly frame the Trifid nebula between the two tails, and it will look exactly correct… if it cannot do that already. It will be stunning. But is that astrophotography?
Using narrow band filters and false color pallettes is still representing exactly what’s there, but pulling in more detail not normally seen in the visible spectrum. Still astrophotography.
But even before StarNet++, GIMP for years let you select all stars, and not nebulosity, and then apply additional sharpening and lower intensity to de-emphasize the stars, and punch up the DSO. But now is it astrophotography? Or astronomical art? It’s still highly creative, just as much if not more effort, and even more visually amazing to see every wispy filament of a DSO without as many, or even any stars to obstruct the DSO’s glory. Yet… Is it that different than painting that image in Inkscape by hand as an art piece?
Or what if I dimmed an image of a mineral moon, and pasted it so the two halfs of the Veil nebula perfectly cradled it? Even if I captured the shots, that’s still just art. Everything is a shades of gray choice, so I don’t know if dimming all stars by 50% without removing any of them still qualifies as astrophotography, or if that number is 5%. And my silly opinion may shift now that I’ve upgraded my equipment again. <end uncalled for off-topic rant>
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