AIC 2011

[sleshin]

I believe it was 3 years ago that Jack Harvey gave a PI workshop at AIC and had 8 to 10 attendees. As some of you may know, I was asked to give a PI workshop this year at AIC which took place 2 days ago. I thought the PI family here on the forums might be interested to know that this year around 100 astrophotographers attended the workshop, certainly a great sign of the increasing recognition of and interest in PI. I was delighted to see a lot of enthusiasm from many interested in learning more about PI. It seems clear that all the hard work and dedication to producing such an outstanding processing platform by Juan and his development team is really paying off. So kudos to Juan, Vicente, Carlos and all the others who contribute to making PI such a fantastic program. Keep up the great work.

Steve

[Harry page]

Hi

I am glad it went well for you 8)  Not a easy thing to do 

Were your attendees newbies or fellow current PI users , where did you aim your talk ?

Harry

[Jack Harvey]

Yep I had a real small turnout.  And at that time there was a small core of PI users and we were finding our way with the tools in PI  Images were good I'm many cases but not great.  Now I am not surprised at your turnout.  As I peruse the gallery of PI images i am blown aways by their excellence.  Yep things have evolved for the PI community.  And knowing Juan, I suspect more to come<G>.

Congrats on your presentation and attendance numbers.

BTW a couple of weeks ago in a thread on CCDNewAstro the moderator, Ron Widowski, suggested people look at PixInsight as it had the tools necessary for top notch astro image processing.

[vetenskapsman]

Hat's off to Steve who gave the PI workshops at AIC.  A difficult task to give an overview to the new, curious or even some who
had given PI a whirl awhile ago and put it aside.  He worked through the initial processing stages (live and in real time) using some
of his great data.  His relaxed and accessible style was a compliment to the power of the PI.  I look fwd to your slides Steve!
At least a couple people I talked with later said they were going to give PI a try as a result of seeing the workshop.

PI was mentioned numerous times in the main talks - often in the context of widefield imaging.  Notably, Nick Risinger of skysurvey.org
said he used PI for his "final touchup" processing.  Of course there was also the amazing lightbox display of the collaborative project
between Bob Caton, Eric Zbinden, Al Howard, and Rogelio.  It was stunning.
http://blog.deepskycolors.com/archivo/2011/10/29/the-making-of-Clouds-of-Perseus--Part-.html

Juan ...check download stats after AIC 

It was great to meet Steve and Sean in person - as well local PI folks,  Marek, RBA and I'm am sure many others I didn't get to connect with.
I often say the SNR of PI users is incredibly high - it certainly was in evidence at AIC!

-carl (carlos)

[pfile]

now you guys are making me feel bad for not going.

but it sounds like the meal-less registration is coming next year, so at the lower price i'd probably attend.

[RBA]

Yes, the 14 foot display was sweet! 

Just so everyone knows, next to the display Carl mentioned, there was a banner where this software was mentioned. Also, on the other side, there was a table with laminated sheets including more details, where again, in some of them PixInsight was mentioned. Here's a photo of the banner I took when we were setting up the display. I left it 100% so you can zoom in and read it:

http://deepskycolors.com/astro/2011/10/CoP_Banner.jpg

I also took photos of the display itself, but they don't do justice, so I'll just skip them...

[RBA]

but it sounds like the meal-less registration is coming next year, so at the lower price i'd probably attend.

That's what Jay said, and I had a brief exchange with him about that. I think it would be foolish not to offer no-meal passes, but we'll see. So far, that's the plan.

Of course, all this is fine and dandy, but what I want to see is a workshop (at AIC or another event) about some image processing topic where the title does not include the word PixInsight, but it's indeed done with the software. If you know what I mean, and if you know what THAT means...

(actually that already happened last year, but that was a presentation, not a workshop)

And okay, I'll concede Steve's "relaxed and accessible style" being a plus!   

[RBA]

...as well local PI folks,  Marek, RBA and I'm am sure many others I didn't get to connect with.

Al Howard, Teri Smoot, Rob Hawley, Eric Zbinden... (all local, well, Teri is "almost" local). And other locals who couldn't make it due to the steep price this year or other reasons (Jeff Weiss, Rob "pfile", Mark Johnston, etc)....

We're a fun and happy crowd in this part of the world  8) Especially Al, Marek and Teri, all of them who got NICE door prizes: Marek a scope, Teri a camera... (I didn't "play" because I was being sponsored, but I've got my own "prize", trust me )...

[Sean]

I just got back from AIC, and had the pleasure of attending Steve's workshop. I thought he did an excellent job - he was well prepared, and covered a lot of material in the short time available. I thought the section on deconvolution was particularly good. As others have said, there was good attendance and a lot of interest in PI. It was also fun to meet some other members of the PI community.

I found myself in some of the other image processing presentations thinking "That could have been done more effectively with PI". I guess that means I'm hooked!

Sean

[sleshin]

Back home now and getting caught up. Thanks for the nice comments. Really enjoyed meeting and talking with many PI enthusiasts.

Were your attendees newbies or fellow current PI users , where did you aim your talk ?

I prepared my presentation assuming that there would be new and less experienced PI users in attendance and I especially wanted them to have a worthwhile experience. I did informally pole attendees at both workshops by a show of hands and would estimate that 3/4's were in fact in this category. I used a format that I always find most instructive and helpful when I attend workshops and that is to do a "live" processing demonstration so participants can really see how things work. I processed data from NGC 3628, the Hamburger Galaxy in the Leo Trio. The completed image with this data was the APOD last Friday, the day of the workshop. Jerry Bonnell is a enthusiastic supporter of AIC and needless to say, I appreciated his support and recognition. I have to say that overall, giving the workshop was an enjoyable experience and AIC this year was great.

Steve

[RBA]

The completed image with this data was the APOD last Friday, the day of the workshop. Jerry Bonnell is a enthusiastic supporter of AIC and needless to say, I appreciated his support and recognition.

Yes, that was a nice touch, and Jerry is a really nice guy.
I wonder what you and him were talking for hours at the hotel's lounge on Saturday night...
Building rapport to get more of your images on the APOD?  8)

[pfile]

That's what Jay said, and I had a brief exchange with him about that. I think it would be foolish not to offer no-meal passes, but we'll see. So far, that's the plan.

here's hoping...

Of course, all this is fine and dandy, but what I want to see is a workshop (at AIC or another event) about some image processing topic where the title does not include the word PixInsight, but it's indeed done with the software. If you know what I mean, and if you know what THAT means...

yeah, i know what you mean. i have no doubt that PI will get there.

... or other reasons (Jeff Weiss, Rob "pfile", Mark Johnston, etc)....

air quotes not needed, it is after all my surname . i've just been using computers so long that when they gave me a username at cal, there were few enough people that the last-name-only namespace was big enough to hold everyone. so i've just stuck with that as a username. some people in my family seem to be upset that i'm the one-and-true pfile but hey, i got here first!

[Juan Conejero]

Steve,

Thank you so much for your support and enthusiasm for PixInsight. Thanks also to all who have supported us since we released a first version of PI in 2004. It has been a long way where we have gone through a lot of trouble and hard work, but posts like these help me think that everything is starting to make sense. Hopefully we still have many beautiful and exciting things to do, so let's return to work. Thanks!

[Thorsten Lockert]

It was nice to see the PixInsight workshops listed in the program, and I did drag Ron Wodaski to one of them. It was well worth it.

I only wish it had been a whole-day thing with more hands-on stuff, but AIC is not quite the right venue for that (yet?), I guess.

Thorsten

[budguinn]

Hi Steve, I thoroughly enjoyed your presentation and I heard many favorable comments afterwards.
Great job

bud