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Hi all, please take this post with a grain of salt. I am not affiliated with any developers of AI programs whatsoever. I am also not a fan of AI tools in astro imagery. I have seen quite some images lately, that show too heavy or wrong use of deconvolution leading to "worm-like" features of small details in images. However, with the recent uprise of AI helper tools within this community of astrophotographers I think we can now all take the last step and let AI generate the image  . I mean we do have remote controlled scopes all over the world. Download the sub exposure and have to fiddle with post processing...   I learnt of midjourney v5 by chance today and was intrigued and fiddled around with it. After generating various images of whatever I wondered how good it is at generating astroimages. So the prompt I used was: A photograph of the andromeda galaxy through a telescope with 150mm aperture and 1000 mm focal length. The photo must have at least 20 hours exposure time. The neighbouring galaxies M32 and M110 must be within the field of view. Midjourney would generated 4 images. Again these are not photos collected in a google search on the internet, but artifically generated images:  Now clearly, this is not the correct representation of M31 to begin with. If you are familiar with M31 you will notice that the top right image has the correct features: reddish core, blue outer arms with clusters of stars and some H-aplha regions. I continued to use #4 (bottom right) to shuffle and regenerate images:  I really like photo in bottom left. Nice stars really. Maybe a little too much sharpening without properly applied mask for the stars ;).  And finally another set of images:  Looking quite nice doesn't it? Still not M31 but estatically pleasing. Collimation might be a bit off when looking at the stars, so the AI needs to learn to collimate the scopes properly first  .I am amazed, also floored by what is possible with AI image generation. The above image is of course not correct to the description, which is probably due to niche data or lacking description. However, there are virtually no limits what you can do currently with it. Also questions about copyright and ownership will be interesting. With respect to the recent advant of AI tools for image (re-)construction in astro-pictures I am wondering if the AI can be used to be fed with the 100s of exposures and do a fully automated image processing. Oh wait, we have that... .Also if you still want proper data to work with just talk to Alexa and instruct her to let ChatGPT controll your Unistellar. Go to bed and next morning you have your image. How much fun is that  .Br, and keep imaging please ;) Michael |
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| Maybe that is how our own world was generated. |
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There are scientific papers on the idea that we are part of a generated world within a massive computer simulation. I have a publication somewhere on the computer wherein they discuss a test or state the non-existance of this reality... crazy stuff  |
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Maybe the entire cosmos is AI generated and we think it's "real". Hmm... I image because it's meaningful, pleasurable, exciting and fun. Not imaging because AI can do it would be like stopping because Hubble and Webb will always do it better. AI, no matter how powerful it gets will always lack what we humans have: Life and self-awareness. Sure, we can program AI spectacularly to mimic and imitate life and self-awareness, but it will never have it, not really. Perhaps the real danger is that AI will "think" it is alive, and will "think" it has self-awareness. To put it simply, AI will never in a billion years enjoy sex, ice cream or the magnificent experience of loving another human or being under a Bortle 1 sky. Of course, it's possible I could be wrong. |
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| As somebody says, the problem is not what AI produce or does, the problem is when humans start to behave/doing/expressing as AI does. In AP, in my opinion, we can observe people producing more and more images that look like coming out from an AI application. As usual, the problem is with the limits, there is room for a good use of AI, but there is an edge, going beyond that the output will not be different or distinguishable from an image 100% from AI. I also believe that music is nice not because comes from a perfect instrument but from one that has imperfections and so on. I think that something similar do happen with the beauty from images. |
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Claudio Tenreiro: My wife, who is an often-published writer, told me that literary journals now have to screen out AI produced essays and fiction because people are submitting works for publication that were actually "written" by AI. Maybe, as with all of our technologies, the evil or goodness of the invention isn't in the thing itself, but within ourselves. A hammer can be used to build a home or used to hit someone over the head. Atomic energy can be used to create electricity or destroy a city. The problem is us. I worry that giving increasingly sophisticated technologies to humans is like giving a box of matches to a 3-year old. |
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During the rise of PI in recent years imho you could clearly tell which images have been PIed. They look beautiful. And I am also using this program exclusively do to its interface that I like. But they always seem quite oversaturated - "artifical" . Interestingly, those AI-generated images I posted above look like straight from PI . Again, just observation - not judging. I am also using this program. While playing around with Midjourney and exploring results similar to mine (different art though, not astro related) these images look infact similar. There is not much artistic difference to be seen. Not sure how to express this correctly, but it is evident when you see it... |
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I think this reflects the dataset used during training (the amount of saturated images of any subject) and not what is currently the most popular astrophotography processing software (at least according to AstroBin's Equipment Database, with Photoshop being second). PI is probably among the first serious (=quality) astronomical image processing tools, but not the one with the friendliest UI. Other apps provide us far more easier tools to pump up the saturation. And... I, for one, welcome our robot overlords!  |
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| Plottwist: Thats an image of the Milky Way as seen from Andromeda |
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I wouldn't say PI processed images are inherently oversaturated, for color manipulation, like most tasks, there are a variety of tools with differing effects, but with all of what PI offers, it's easy to get carried away..... : ) Regarding astro AI, automated imaging (with or without AI), and old school (walking uphill both ways....), we all have access to whichever gear, software, and processes provide the experience we each want. I don't understand why there's so much concern over how someone else does it. The argument I've heard against a simulated universe is that it would take a computer the size of the universe...... I do think that AI in general is cause for concern, or at least caution. The potential is huge, but we don't sufficiently understand what we seem to be rushing into, either on a technological, or social, level. Lives will be saved by AI read medical imaging, but if necessary, an AI driven car will sacrifice it's occupant for others...... IMHO. Cheers, Scott |
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First of all, these are very nice pictures! But the AI clearly has not been trained on the density wave theory, and the shape of the dust lanes is clearly unphysical. (Some of them are closer, but still looks off) Humans 1:0 AI. :-) |
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| More like: Universe 1:0 AI |
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@Michael Lorenz Wow, this is synchronicity....I too found out about midjourney yesterday....and was playing around with it...here is a image I got man in foreground looking up at the universe at night. desert landscape with saguaro cactus. water reflecting the night sky. glowing, photo real, another world.  man sitting in forground in meditation on another world. distant mountains. a glow on the horizon the sky is filled with stars and planets, otherworldly. photo realistic cinematic --s 250  |
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| It seems unmistakable that most people will reject "old-school" reality for simulated reality soon enough. It's happening all around us. I don't think this paints a particularly good picture of our nature as humans. What will simulations write about us after we've given up all sense of the reality we once had? |
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Doug Summers: Depends a bit on your perspective, I think. I live in northern NH, in a town of 800 surrounded by national forest on three sides, and not a neighbor, road or artificial light in view. Can I then question the reality construct that is LA, or Manhattan, or Paris?..... Cheers, Scott |
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Greg Meyer MD: In the first image, the Milky Way looks completely fake to me, it's edges are far too straight, it looks like bad art to me. The 2nd image looks like cosmic art right out of the 1970s, not much better or worse. I know that AI will do a lot of good, save lives in terms of medical procedures, help avoid aircraft disasters, etc. But as far as art? It's not going to produce art of any value because art is about the personal experience of being human, it's the subjective expression of being alive and perceiving with one's senses, mind and heart. There's also the reality of originality--nobody but Mozart can be Mozart, nobody but Bob Dylan could be Bob Dylan. An artist, a composer, a poet, a novelist--we produce works that require thousands and thousands of artistic and subjective decisions, based on aesthetic sensitivity, desire and one's own artistic standards. AI won't be able to do that although, sadly, most people won't know, or won't care about that distinction. As long as someone is making a lot of money, AI "art" will sell, just like junk food sells. |
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Jerry Gerber:Greg Meyer MD: This may be a bit off topic, but I do see artists using AI to find inspirations. Won’t surprise me if Bob Dylan of the next generation uses AI to find ideas for the next Bob Dylan song. AI is a new tool, and a good artist will figure out how to use it to open up new possibilities. Today’s professional go players already study AI’s moves for new strategies, and they are considered artists in their field. |
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Yuxuan:Jerry Gerber:Greg Meyer MD: I don't think it's off-topic. Good artists, meaning people with authentic talent, skills and originality will always be able to embrace new tools and new technologies that can and do give expression to new art. But what's going to be retained is the sense that there's a living personality, a unique human being behind the work. Who is making the aesthetic decisions? What is governing the form? Is there sentience behind what's being expressed? Like many technologies AI has great potential for triggering creative inspiration in people. But if the machine is making all the creative decisions based on a few general instructions, not only do I not see the art in it, but I don't see the creative satisfaction and pleasure that artists get from working. Both the fun and the struggle of doing something creative is in the myriad of decisions that must be made to produce the work in the first place! |
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In my opinion, the problem is not using AI to better correct processing images using statistical data or something like that and letting the AI to choose the better model to compare / process or whatever is supposed to do. For me, the problem is when the AI creates an image (in the case we are discussing) starting with nothing. I'm not sure if with my english limitations I'm expressing myself in a way you can understand the difference of what I'm saying (I'm so sorry about that). Clear skies! |
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| At the end its not about the destination, but the satisfaction of the Journey. |
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| Well the big difference is that AI art is fake. You might as well paint it yourself. This has no relation to space and is not related in any way to the true purpose and motivation of astrophotography. I can stop doing photos eh? |
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To be an AI devil advocate, there is no relation either between the fundamental quantum state of the particules you try to image, with those displayed on your screen  |
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Well the big difference is that AI art is fake. You might as well paint it yourself. This has no relation to space and is not related in any way to the true purpose and motivation of astrophotography. I can stop doing photos eh? Good point, and really for me also the process of photographing, setting the equipment up and so on is part of the journey and fun. People surely also don't do this to gain likes right ;). I mean tens of hourse of exposure, hours of post processing, and then people look at the image for what, 10sec, give a like or not and then move on. But thats a completely different point I am going here. Some good thoughts here nontheless! Also the reply to Greg Meyer that his MJ art is clearly not photorealistic is true, but you can certainly tune your result to give a realistic result right now. Or creat entirely new art in 10sec. If tuned very well only few peple may be able to differentiate between AI generated image and actual image. And that may become problematic. Its similar to chatGPT starting putting out text, that in the first place is looked over and corrected by humans/people. But as trust grows and errors become less and less, why would you proof read it? I had an interesting discussion with friends on this very topic today. No conclusion there, just wait and see what the next years, tens of years or centuries will bring. The possibilities become ever more fascinating. |
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I took a couple of my own photos and did a blend....just interesting pix come out....I just like cool space photos whether from a sci-fi sho or the real things. variations on wide field orion nebula with the whirlpool nebula:   |
