After more than a month of doing silly things to the Astronomy Picture of the Day, today I received an e-mail from one of the astronomers.
The note said “Hey, what are you doing to my picture?”
After my heart rate had lowered enough for me to be functional, I approached my DH rather tentatively and said “So…if I went to jail, would you bail me out?”
“Depends. I guess so, if it were $ 200 or less.”
With this comforting thought in mind, I wrote to the astronomer saying that I’d be glad to remove the image from Chiff.
I received a very polite note from him saying that although he wasn’t sure if “tweaking” APOD pictures was generally permissible, he was OK with this case as long as I didn’t sell it, and didn’t mind him using my image!
Whew!
So-- They Come In Peace
The astronomer is Dr. Graeme White, and he’s from Oz.
Here’s some snips from his webpage.
You’re allowed to use copyright protected material for purposes of parody, so I reckon you’re covered anyway.
I’d hope the guys at NASA and those who’s pictures NASA use on the APOD site would view your changes in the spirit intended. Light hearted humour (firefox has underlined this, despite me constantly telling it I’m not American, grr) with lots of respect for the original images and their subjects.
I was wondering why they called it the Australian Telescope National Facility instead of the Australian National Telescope Facility, when I realized it was because they didn’t want to be referred to as ANTFac.
You should explain that you use your prodigious skills for good, to which fact I can attest should the need arise.
While you’re at it, see if they can be a little more clear about those explanations. I had more than the usual difficulty with that shoebox one the other day. The one filled with red squiggles that purportedly made the strings connecting the blue balls sag all over. Do they make this stuff up or what?
Dr. Graeme White’s picture was selected to be an APoD.
I doubt that he was consulted for input in the writing of the of the one that you are talking about.
APoD has a bulletin board, there is a APoD forum there.
I don’t know that I’d call your interpetations parody… more like revelations of the spirit of the image.
Let’s face it - I for one wouldn’t look so closely at the APOD if it weren’t for the challenge of trying to figure out what could be made of it - I’d sat you are performing an educational service.
I’m sure your images will liven up Dr W’s lecture slides!!
PS: We do have lovely dark skies here in Oz. On a good night you can even see black holes with the naked eye.
I wasn’t particularly interested in astronomy either-- my background is in insects / plants so I’m not used to looking up
After a year of hanging out at C & F and reading Denny’s daily link to the APOD site, I’ve gotten much more enthused about it.
Last night’s episode was about nebulas. As they showed images of different nebulas (nebulae?) I kept saying “oooh! oooh! I recognize that one!” Part of the show is mini-interviews with different astronomers. Jerry Bonnell spoke several times. “oooh! oooh! I recognize that name!” Turns out, he’s one half of the APOD team.
I don’t know if the whole series is as good as that one episode, but I give it two thumbs up. Beautifully filmed, a little effusive in places but not over-the-top. Very informative, well-organized (they discussed each of the 5 types of nebulae in turn). There were some computer-generated sequences, but not too many. My favorite part last night was when they explained what “false color images” mean. I guess I’d been thinking that many of them were tinted in a way that would make them look pretty. Apparently though, there’s a standard way of representing the colors. If you could see these colors with the naked eye (they’re normally too faint), oxygen gives a blue light, hydrogen is a dark red and sulphur a lighter red. These colors are photographically tweaked so that each element is assigned a primary color, making it easier to distinguish which element is abundant where. I think they called it “the Hubble palette”.
And I have to admit, I liked the effusive parts, where the astronomers gushed about how much they love what they are studying!
Caroluna asked: It said in the article about him that he was working to set up an observatory in Wagga Wagga. Have you heard anything (in the news etc) about that?
The observatory is long established but it appears that what he’s establishing is a community observatory - I’m not quite sure what that is - perhaps only scientists get time on the telescope at the main facility?
I note that the project is sponsored by Dr G Wren - now that’s getting wierd.
