PixInsigth workshops and presentation at AAIC (not AIC, the "AA" is not a typo)

[RBA]

AAIC = Australian Astro Imaging Conference = http://www.aaic2011.com/

The conference takes place at the Crowne Plaza Hotel in Surfers Paradise, on the Gold Coast in Queensland, from July 8 until the 10th, and yours truly will be there, doing a couple of PixInsight workshops on the 8th, and a stage presentation on the 9th or 10th (not sure which day yet).

Mark Bolton, who I met at last AIC (single "A") has done an amazingly superb job putting this together, and the program looks truly top-notch, with some of the very best Australian astroimagers - people like Prof. David Malin, Eddie Trimachi, Anthony Wesley and many more! Ken Crawford and myself will be "representing" the non-Aussie world.

So for those of you down under, I hope you can make it!

Cheers,
Rogelio

[sleshin]

Sounds great. Wish I could be in the front row for your workshop. Good luck.

Steve

[h0ughy]

AAIC = Australian Astro Imaging Conference = http://www.aaic2011.com/

The conference takes place at the Crowne Plaza Hotel in Surfers Paradise, on the Gold Coast in Queensland, from July 8 until the 10th, and yours truly will be there, doing a couple of PixInsight workshops on the 8th, and a stage presentation on the 9th or 10th (not sure which day yet).

Mark Bolton, who I met at last AIC (single "A") has done an amazingly superb job putting this together, and the program looks truly top-notch, with some of the very best Australian astroimagers - people like Prof. David Malin, Eddie Trimachi, Anthony Wesley and many more! Ken Crawford and myself will be "representing" the non-Aussie world.

So for those of you down under, I hope you can make it!

Cheers,
Rogelio

Yes I am having a hard time getting time off from family/work as I have booked myself in for Queensdland Astrofest (july 22 to july 31) which is only a fortnight after this event.  I know if I don’t book I will regret it

[daffy]

AAIC = Australian Astro Imaging Conference = http://www.aaic2011.com/

The conference takes place at the Crowne Plaza Hotel in Surfers Paradise, on the Gold Coast in Queensland, from July 8 until the 10th, and yours truly will be there, doing a couple of PixInsight workshops on the 8th, and a stage presentation on the 9th or 10th (not sure which day yet).

Mark Bolton, who I met at last AIC (single "A") has done an amazingly superb job putting this together, and the program looks truly top-notch, with some of the very best Australian astroimagers - people like Prof. David Malin, Eddie Trimachi, Anthony Wesley and many more! Ken Crawford and myself will be "representing" the non-Aussie world.

So for those of you down under, I hope you can make it!

Cheers,
Rogelio

Yes I am having a hard time getting time off from family/work as I have booked myself in for Queensdland Astrofest (july 22 to july 31) which is only a fortnight after this event.  I know if I don’t book I will regret it

As a veteran of the 2010 Chicago conference, I can tell you that you ought to do what you can to be there. Hell, if I had the $ I would bring the wife and come out myself!

David

[RobF2]

Well I'm happy to say I WAS in the front row watching Rogelio do his stuff for 1.5hrs this afternoon, and man does he know his stuff.    8)
I think more than a few copies of PI may have been "sold" today too actually.... 

[h0ughy]

Well I'm happy to say I WAS in the front row watching Rogelio do his stuff for 1.5hrs this afternoon, and man does he know his stuff.    8)
I think more than a few copies of PI may have been "sold" today too actually.... 

Hey Rob i so wanted to be there this weekend, did you get a video of the session?  I am glad that a few people managed to see how an expert handles this package rather than the simpleton like me when i was at astrofest last year.  will you be at Qld Astrofest in 2 weeks?

[RobF2]

Yes, I'll be at AF Sat through to Thur night, packing up Fri David.  Will hopefully get time to play developing some days.  I'm no guru just for watching, but a quite a few things made me pricky my ears up.  For example, I've always struggled to get the things I wanted masked propertly in PI, and little things like watching Rogelio select/deselect layers in ATWT with the Preview turned on were a bit of a d'oh! moment.  Surely some people must have been gobsmacked by HDR wavelets and mosaic functions too.

Like most software I guess, you generally learn something watching a proficient user at work.
I wasn't video'ing myself sorry.  There is supposed to be a DVD but R was working fairly adhoc by his own admission.

[h0ughy]

Yes, I'll be at AF Sat through to Thur night, packing up Fri David.  Will hopefully get time to play developing some days.  I'm no guru just for watching, but a quite a few things made me pricky my ears up.  For example, I've always struggled to get the things I wanted masked propertly in PI, and little things like watching Rogelio select/deselect layers in ATWT with the Preview turned on were a bit of a d'oh! moment.  Surely some people must have been gobsmacked by HDR wavelets and mosaic functions too.

Like most software I guess, you generally learn something watching a proficient user at work.
I wasn't video'ing myself sorry.  There is supposed to be a DVD but R was working fairly adhoc by his own admission.

great news.  hey i wonder how many people will have downloaded and bought PI after the conference, I hear that Rogelio was a hit and a half!!?

[RobF2]

Was a very balanced and fair approach taken though.  Continual emphasis of "different", not necessarily "better".  Still, I'd be very surprised if there aren't quite a few trial copies taken out over this week.  Really, its only a matter of time until people figure out how powerful PI really is. 

Rats - there goes our unfair advantage.......! 

[RBA]

I hear that Rogelio was a hit and a half!!?

Where do you hear those things?  All I heard is that it went well, which to me, it's good enough!!

The Sunday talk was a trimmed version of my talk at AIC 2010. The Friday workshop was brand new and rather improvised, believe it or not (proof of that was when I tried to do the HDRComposition and Mark's PixInsight's version was just old enough NOT to include that module 8) ).

The "thing" that went on towards the end of Sunday... Well, that was just silly. I accepted because I didn't know how to say no. Of course, it would have helped if the data hadn't been pre-stretched (and seriously posterized) 

[h0ughy]

I hear that Rogelio was a hit and a half!!?

Where do you hear those things?  All I heard is that it went well, which to me, it's good enough!!

The Sunday talk was a trimmed version of my talk at AIC 2010. The Friday workshop was brand new and rather improvised, believe it or not (proof of that was when I tried to do the HDRComposition and Mark's PixInsight's version was just old enough NOT to include that module 8) ).

The "thing" that went on towards the end of Sunday... Well, that was just silly. I accepted because I didn't know how to say no. Of course, it would have helped if the data hadn't been pre-stretched (and seriously posterized) 

from a few who attended the event - since i couldnt be there.  i am not sure what you are talking about the "thing" - is that the event?  Anyway from what I can gather you have made a very strong impression on quite a few people - so if you wish to measure success with influence and knowledge i think (from what i heard) it was extremely successful, dispite the wardrobe malfunctions!

[RBA]

i am not sure what you are talking about the "thing" - is that the event?

No. The "thing" was that during a part of the conference on Sunday afternoon called "Ask the experts", someone asked if I could "process" live some calibrated but unprocessed data he had of M20... in 15 minutes.

While the request was a bit pointless by itself (I think we all can see that) I said sure, not without a brief but polite comment about how a "challenge" like this wasn't really all that useful, but then, some members of the audience and myself became a bit skeptical about the image being JUST calibrated and nothing else done to it when we saw the "raw" image, because it had a very "fat" histogram and was showing some SERIOUS posterization... I remember even David Malin made a comment about that... so I just threw a crop, ABE (I had a "reason" for using ABE rather than DBE, but that's another story), CC and histogram, but of course the image wasn't looking much like an APOD, because of the posterization, some registration errors and other goodies. Still it looked a lot better than the original LOL!! In the end, we shared a few jokes, and hopefully everyone "learned" that there's no magic involved here: bad data will always be bad data - and with badly registered/pre-stretched data, the best thing to do is to go back rather than forward. But it was cool  8)

[RobF2]

Actually that short Sunday session was a check Rogelio to make sure you don't have a special magical "APOD" module for PI you haven't told us about......

Seriously though, was handled very politely by you and I haven't come across a single person who said anything bad about how you worked through what was potentially a somewhat embarrassing situation (for you and the person the data came from).   

[pluckas]

The "thing" that went on towards the end of Sunday... Well, that was just silly...

Not at all Rogelio. For those who consider themselves 'advanced' astro-imagers, the session was not silly, but a reminder that there is no 'magic wand'. For the novices there were actually a few good tips in there. Above all, we all received some insight on how you (personally) approach such problems, particularly within the PI workspace (let's not forget that it was an impromptu session with less than ideal data).

All of your sessions were very much appreciated. Thanks again!

Paul

[nebula]

I only saw your presentation on Friday and that was enough for me to purchase a copy.

I am yet to get myself any data worth processing but nearly have my gear where it needs to be to make a start (doing it on a shoestring budget).

So many things to get my head around, I have been going mod mad lately (removed ir/uv filter from canon 350d, just completed a long exposure mod on phillips spc900 for guiding which is mounted in a guidescope I made with a lense I bought online, and modded a heq5 directional handset so I can send guiding commands to it).  Just got my field flattener and waiting on CLS CCD filter.

Im praying that this system will work for me, wish me luck!  I am 4.5km out of Brisbane so light pollution is pretty bad, not sure what scale it would be and maybe the CLS CCD filter wont cut the mustard, if it doesnt would it be worth stacking it with somthing else wise people?