The first day has come and gone at the 2010 Advanced Imaging Conference (AIC) in San Jose, California. The last item on Friday’s super-busy agenda was the General Session Opener and Sponsor Update, which began at 8 p.m. and ran for 2 hours.
Six sponsors gave product or company updates: Apogee Instruments, Astro-Physics, DC-3 Dreams, LightBuckets online telescope rentals, and PlaneWave Telescopes. Oh, and me, from one of the editorial sponsors, Astronomy magazine.
I chatted about our upcoming 100-page special publication, Spectacular Universe. As you might imagine, the crowd at AIC really liked the idea of a special photographic issue.
The biggest applause I got was when I told the group of about 300 that every image would be one taken by an amateur astronomer — no Hubble or any other professional shots will grace these pages. I encouraged them to send their best work and then gave a few pointers about submitting images.
Afterward, several attendees talked to me about what their latest images were and when they would send them to me. Boston astroimager and contributor Neil Fleming said that his latest project encompassed 68 hours of exposure time. Wow! I can’t wait to see that one.
With this blog, I end day one at AIC. So much happened today that it feels like I’ve been here a week. Expect a lot more Saturday, and be sure to check out the photos I've taken in the Online Reader Gallery.
Related blogs:
Putting faces to images at AIC
The best imagers are in California
On my way to the AIC 2010