I wonder would it be worth it putting together a calendar using some of the brilliant pictures that have featured in these pages over the last year. Perhaps raise some money for charity ?

Great idea Dave. I wouldn't know how to go about getting it sorted but it would beat an ice bucket challenge.

Sean

Ding ding, that's a cracking idea..
The winner from each month can feature.. There could also be a seasonal calendar with DSO'S featured for that month. As I said at the top of this post, CRACKING Idea..

Cheers Roy

#ClearSkies #LunarNut #LoveSkelligsLodgeSkies

With the proceeds going to charity, I would certainly purchase one, a fantastic idea and one worth pursuing.

Paul

It's a very good idea. It was mentioned some years ago, but it just never took off. Some IFAS clubs have produced their own calendars in the past - it takes a lot of time and commitment from a select few to get such a thing off the ground. It would make an excellent souvenir, and we'd also be helping someone in need.

If this was to gather momentum, who would be a person's choice of charity? The proceeds could even be split among a number of them.

It is something that the committee would have to discuss and IFAS Reps partake in, and anyone else who wanted to get involved, so this may merit further discussion off the forums til the logistics and concerns are sifted through (speedily too, I might add, as pretty soon 2015 calendars will be going into production/on sale everywhere).

Get your thinking caps on!

Seanie.

Thanks for that Seanie,

We can simplify this.

Lets firstly get Images, I can set up a photobox or something like that and invite images. If we get more than 12 we can have a vote on here.

Then we need to get a price on printing, you print ours for MAC, can you give us ball park figures ?

Then Charity, again open up the discussion here, get suggestions and vote.

IFAS Committee and IFAS Reps, please see:
www.irishastronomy.org/index.php?option=...71&Itemid=211#101907

Dave (and others),
What have you in your head about format, how to use the images, and so on? Would the winning images from the astrophotography competition for the 12 months up until the calendar is ready be good enough to use, or are you thinking of a general submission of entries with a vote for the highest 12 most-voted entries on a poll?

Seanie.

Hi Senie,

im thinking something like what you produce for MAC, size and quality.

We could use the images from the competition and some others if needs be.

Some may not suit, some might not print great, we could get a basket of images and pick the best 12 plus one for the cover.

Yea, this is a good idea, I remember the one years ago. I wouldn't limit it to the monthly competition but would limit it to ifas club members who can then submit an image for voting and the 12 highest votes get in

OK, sounds like a plan forming.

Seanie can you get a post up asking for submissions, and put an end date of 2 weeks say, that gives us another week to vote and get the Calendar out in Early December.

Okay, ye can put me down for 1.
Just a couple of questions, will ye be
setting up a PayPal payment option also ye're gonna have to include a P&P option.. Also I think the pictures that are used should display the name of the person that captured the image..

Cheers Roy

#ClearSkies #LunarNut #LoveSkelligsLodgeSkies

Yeah, that's not a bad idea Roy.
Ill look into it

This is a great idea.

We'll list them on our shop website if you want, no problem at all

What are people's thoughts about it being an IFAS fundraiser? After all, there's no other source of income apart from club membership fees, and the profits go back into the organisation to fund future projects.

Some people have contacted me to say they would be in favour of this over charity. After all, it begins at home...


Seanie.

Need to be transparent on this Seanie or we end up looking like another famous Astronomy Club.
What exactly are the funds being used for?
I don't ever remember IFAS publishing accounts or seeing minutes from an AGM.

Have no problem with the idea, but need transparency.

Yea, I have to say I was thinking of the funds heading to ifas also.

manic_dave wrote:

What exactly are the funds being used for?
I don't ever remember IFAS publishing accounts or seeing minutes from an AGM.

Transparency is not an issue. There are minutes of all previous AGMs available to the committee members, or (like all organisations) available privately upon request. As are IFAS's balance sheets and income+expenditure accounts (committee/IFAS Reps only). Rest assured, IFAS has operated above and beyond what is needed, should it ever need to apply for funding, charitable status, tax clearance certificates, trusteeships, and so on.

For IYA 2009, IFAS received a generous contribution from Discover Science and Engineering Ireland, which was distributed among the member clubs back then to use as they see fit. Since then, there is no funding available, but there is support from e.g. DIAS when SolarFest comes around. Apart from this, all IFAS earns is the membership of participating clubs upon January's renewals.

If more funds were available, then IFAS can pursue more avenues of publicity for every club, from promotional items like flyers, magnets, stickers, and more for outreach events, to even contributing to an IFAS event where there's an astrophotography workshop, guest speakers, and more. The latter two are already in the pipeline by the way, but funding issues limit what can be done.

A quirk of whether to increase membership has always been 'what will the increased funds be used for?', and so beings the going in circles for a time til a proper plan is conceived. To begin with a souvenir calendar, offered worldwide, is a good start to alleviate any pressure on clubs to cough up more on membership fees, especially since the likes of South Dublin AS, which had no membership fee for its own members and therefore no cashflow, its IFAS membership was paid for out of John Flannery's own pocket.

More funds for IFAS means more contributions back to members clubs. It's a win-win situation.

Seanie.

Roy wrote:

will ye be
setting up a PayPal payment option also ye're gonna have to include a P&P option.

PayPal Minicarts can be used for option-enabled purchasing. I use it on many client websites I have created, and it is customisable (no need for an online shop). The committee would be the judge of what to charge any publication and how to cover postage fees. Postage would have to come with the source of print I reckon, and therefore can be done with once-off quantities as desired, at any time.

Seanie.

Thanks for that Seanie, we just need to ensure that we are open about what we are using the funds for if we are going selling.

lets push on and get images in.

Seanie_Morris wrote:

manic_dave wrote:

What exactly are the funds being used for?
I don't ever remember IFAS publishing accounts or seeing minutes from an AGM.

Transparency is not an issue. There are minutes of all previous AGMs available to the committee members, or (like all organisations) available privately upon request. As are IFAS's balance sheets and income+expenditure accounts (committee/IFAS Reps only). Rest assured, IFAS has operated above and beyond what is needed, should it ever need to apply for funding, charitable status, tax clearance certificates, trusteeships, and so on.

For IYA 2009, IFAS received a generous contribution from Discover Science and Engineering Ireland, which was distributed among the member clubs back then to use as they see fit. Since then, there is no funding available, but there is support from e.g. DIAS when SolarFest comes around. Apart from this, all IFAS earns is the membership of participating clubs upon January's renewals.

If more funds were available, then IFAS can pursue more avenues of publicity for every club, from promotional items like flyers, magnets, stickers, and more for outreach events, to even contributing to an IFAS event where there's an astrophotography workshop, guest speakers, and more. The latter two are already in the pipeline by the way, but funding issues limit what can be done.

A quirk of whether to increase membership has always been 'what will the increased funds be used for?', and so beings the going in circles for a time til a proper plan is conceived. To begin with a souvenir calendar, offered worldwide, is a good start to alleviate any pressure on clubs to cough up more on membership fees, especially since the likes of South Dublin AS, which had no membership fee for its own members and therefore no cashflow, its IFAS membership was paid for out of John Flannery's own pocket.

More funds for IFAS means more contributions back to members clubs. It's a win-win situation.

Seanie.

manic_dave wrote:

lets push on and get images in.

In my opinion, before we publicise submission requests, we still need to hear people's views on where the funds will go. Reps and Committee Members are currently conversing about this (though trying to get more reps involved right now is tedious). My reason is that if this is an IFAS fundraiser instead of a charity fundraiser, then it might mean a reason for one to submit a photo for one IFAS use over the other reason.

There is time enough. We can have 1 to 2 weeks for submissions, the Calendar can be turned around for proofing within a week, and prints can be done (in most cases) next day. So today being the 1st of October (and the momentum of this thread ramps up and is noticed more), then the likelihood that readers should prepare their gear for taking some wicked astrophotography (if they haven't got a wicked image already) til the submissions window opens!


Seanie.

Great idea!

Unanimously agreed upon by the IFAS Reps and Committee is that the calendar become a fundraiser for IFAS to help it further promote astronomy and allied subjects in co-ordination with the efforts of its member clubs.

Details can be found here:
www.irishastronomy.org/index.php?option=...07&Itemid=211#102039

Already, people have chipped in with ideas, input and offers of help, and it is great to see!

Seanie.

Just a question that came into my head when out walking the dog

Re the voting - will it be done online or offline? If online (along the lines of the monthly competition) then surely you also need RGB images. You have stated re RGB and CMYK " however please be aware that some colour alteration will occur during the converting process".....will that not hold true also if you put the CMYK images up on the site for voting on?

I really don't know and in any case it may not be the plan to put them up on the web..... but I was just wondering about that point though because the visible change (CMYK/RGB) between one entry and another may make a huge difference in what those voting are actually looking at.

Kinch.

That's a great question Brendan. In truth, colour variations are very subtle between RGB and CMYK (Cyan Magenta Yallow blacK), but as there are folks who will be very explicit in the colour balance of their final image, I had to make the point to eliminate any blame or responsibility of the printer for any (possible) colour variations.

Think of it like this, for example: Black on your monitor is a combination of the ratios of RGB being 0%/0%/0%. To get a true black on a printer would be a CMYK ratio of 0%/0%/0%/100% - but a rich black, that visually is black, could be a variation like 12%/56%/31%/89%.

Even in an RGB mode, visual colour variations are going to occur because of monitor type (TFT/LCD/CRT), screen resolution (to a lesser extent) and then contrast/brightness settings (on an individual's basis).

I think that the merits of an image when being voted upon are not just on it being a pretty picture, but on how the final image was achieved, special characteristics, and techniques used, and so on. Only the author of the image, with their colour-calibrated monitor will notice any (extreme) colour variations (like yourself) from one monitor to another.

When an image is supplied at 300dpi resolution (default original aspect size for any printer) and in jpeg or pdf format with a CMYK colour balance, you're pretty much guaranteed a tolerance of just a few percents from printer to printer when printed.

Hope this helps,

Seanie.

I understand your point regarding ‘having to make that statement’ and saw it as such when I read it first. It was not that, that actually prompted the question. I’ll come to that ‘in a bit’.
My thanks for the great explanation you gave by the way. I agree with you 100% about the monitor being used and how that may affect RGB images also. I use both a desktop with a half decent monitor and a laptop with what I now see as a pretty poor monitor. (Note the subjective adjectives). That is all that needs to be said about that. There is no doubt about how images will differ from one person’s computer to another be they RGB or CMYK.
One thing you did not mention is what actually prompted my question. Software! I had never, I suppose like most people, had any inclination to change any image over to CMYK. When I did (in Photoshop) I saw immediately what you were talking about – slight colour changes. I later went back to that same CMYK image with my normal JPEG viewing software and cringed when I saw what was on the screen. Obviously this other software just could not handle CMYK properly. It was such a huge change from the RGB image that it really set me thinking that if I was looking at 12 or 16 or 20 images for the calendar in CMYK I may never vote for any of them. (Of course now I know not to use this particular photo-viewer if these images come up for public votes). I understand a little better now that it was that software’s rendition of the CMYK that “knocked me off the stool” and prompted my question rather than just the actual ‘slight’ change that can be expected between RGB & CMYK with a more ‘CMYK friendly’ software – such as Photoshop.
I think that I will try put up two screen captures here just to illustrate what I am talking about. If I am correct, what they illustrate will be self evident.