Beginners astrophotography forum?

Hi Dave
I must be suffering from A.A.C.S. (Amateur Astronomer Clouded out Syndrome); I meant to direct the last paragraph to Mr. Michael O’ Connell, :oops: apologies.

Clear skies
Mike

Hi Mike,
Good to hear the digifire10 is doing the biz. Feel free to drop me a pm or e-mail if you have any queries.
Clear Skies,

A quick tip for any of the newbies...
the 'search' function on the site is great.
But still it's good to post your questions coz you cant beat up to date answers.

As for having a beginners photo section,...
Why not.
If it helps more people and gets them posting thier work then surely its a good thing?!

Lets say we have a beginner section, how do we classify a beginner? this might sound like a stupid question but if you think about it is not as easy as it might seem at first. I think all it will cause is confusion.
For instance, for deepsky imaging I regard myself as a beginner, for planetary and lunar imaging I would classify myself as a small abit experienced but not advanced, so where do I put my posts? It all becomes very confusing, and what about people with really expensive equipment, are they automatically in the advanced section?, some might think so.

If people feel that they cant put up their images because they feel they are better images of the same thing already up, then they are looking at it the wrong way, they should be putting up images with a view to feedback so you might improve on it next time, and with practice you will become proficient in imaging.

Lets say we have a beginner section, how do we classify a beginner? this might sound like a stupid question but if you think about it is not as easy as it might seem at first. I think all it will cause is confusion.
For instance, for deepsky imaging I regard myself as a beginner, for planetary and lunar imaging I would classify myself as a small abit experienced but not advanced, so where do I put my posts? It all becomes very confusing, and what about people with really expensive equipment, are they automatically in the advanced section?, some might think so.

If people feel that they cant put up their images because they feel they are better images of the same thing already up, then they are looking at it the wrong way, they should be putting up images with a view to feedback so you might improve on it next time, and with practice you will become proficient in imaging.

I agree completely. With the exception of one or two members here, the rest of look pretty pathetic compared to the likes of Russell, Rob Gendler et al. Beginners should sieze the opportunity given to them here to learn how to improve their images. By sharing them with others with a wee bit more experience, they are more likely to make less mistakes than only getting feedback from members with similar experience.

Fair enough, leave it alone and let people just post in the 'Astrophotography' section.
It might become too messy otherwise.

But, try for a second and take a fresh look at it if you were a beginner photographer, and just joined the site.

When you go into the Astrophotography section the first few threads are thus:

Astro Photography
A place to discuss all aspects of Astro photography.


Announcement: Another IFAS Astrophotography Opportunity of Importance
Sticky: Procedure for using REGISTAX for Planetary/Lunar imaging
Sticky: Images
(Then the latest posts....)

So what is the newbie photographer actually seeing here?
An announcement about a competition,
a walkthrough for an imaging piece of software and a post about
tagging images.

(all perfectly fine)

But you are a newbie, and you just took your first pic of the moon
with your new scope and your bursting with excitement and would like to
post it up and ask people what they think or for advice but...
your kinda put off coz.....well....This boards posters seems to be all very
experienced (well to you the newbie, when you look down through all those posts on the page!)

OK.
So, enough pratting on.
Do you remember when we updated the front page to make it a bit more
friendly to newcomers?

So how about a sticky at the top of the section that just briefly explains to
the first time reader the vibe of the section, that we encourage first-timers and beginners
to post up their pics?
Also, if asked, we will give our opinions or advice etc.
Then a few brief guidelines as to size and places to store images (Flikr etc...)
tags, all that...?