Wikipedia:Featured picture candidates/Southern sky from Paranal Observatory

Southern sky from Paranal Observatory

Original - Built and operated by the European Southern Observatory, the Paranal Observatory in Chile is home to the Very Large Telescope, an array of four telescopes, each with an aperture of 8.2 metres. This view from the observatory takes in the night sky; as well as the Milky Way, spy the moon on the horizon just rising, the zodiacal light above it, and the Small and Large Magellanic Clouds.

Edit 1: Noise reduced on the ground only.

Reason

Big, interesting, FP on Commons.

Articles in which this image appears

Milky Way, Paranal Observatory

Creator

ESO (more specifically, H.H. Heyer)

• Support as nominator: There are annotations at Commons, too. Maedin\^talk 12:13, 1 April 2010 (UTC)

• I prefer edit 1. Maedin\^talk 12:11, 5 April 2010 (UTC)

• Comment Very nice, very interesting, very noisy. Edit please? --Muhammad(talk) 12:50, 1 April 2010 (UTC)

• Won't be able to for a few hours. I'll see what I can do when I get home. Maedin\^talk 12:52, 1 April 2010 (UTC)
• Yeah, what are all these white specks? Zillions of hot pixels?! Suggest aggressive denoising to remove them all!!1!!one!eleven

• On a more serious note. The blending around the 360 degree seam is screwed up. This makes it an eyesore in a pano-viewer. This is a complete mystery to me, how you can taint such a nice image with such a mistake. --Dschwen 16:55, 1 April 2010 (UTC)

• You didn't do your (flash/no flash) thing for me! I was counting on you for that, ;) Maedin\^talk 17:08, 1 April 2010 (UTC)

• Support no matter what. Great image, high EV.--Mbz1 (talk) 17:03, 1 April 2010 (UTC)
• Edit 1 added: Noise reduced. Maedin\^talk 17:12, 1 April 2010 (UTC)
• Support Stunning. Miyagawa (talk) 17:55, 1 April 2010 (UTC)

• Just to add that I prefer the original, I think the contrast between the sky and the colors is more pronounced. Miyagawa (talk) 10:50, 10 April 2010 (UTC)

• Support It's no Lake District, but it'll do... ;-) hehe Seriously tho, Miyagawa said it best - stunning... Gazhiley (talk) 21:15, 1 April 2010 (UTC)
• Support Obviously a highly technical picture originally produced by a talented astronomer. Will look good for a day on Wikipedia’s Main Page. Greg L (talk) 17:50, 2 April 2010 (UTC)

P.S. I support either. Edit1 is clearly better if one bothers to zoom way in and meanders about looking at the telescopes. My vote may be added to the larger consensus for either picture since I find both to be suitable for the intended purpose as an FP. Greg L (talk) 14:49, 10 April 2010 (UTC)

• Support per Mbz1. --Avenue (talk) 15:10, 3 April 2010 (UTC) (struck as part of clarification below)

• Hmm, I thought edit 1 was part of the April 1 joke, but perhaps not. To clarify, I support the original version, but very strongly oppose edit 1. The "noise" is not uniform, and much of it is from fainter stars. Zoom in on the Small Magellanic cloud, as just one example, to see how crippled edit 1 is. --Avenue (talk) 00:46, 8 April 2010 (UTC)

• I wouldn't like to disagree. When I'm home I'll change the edit to de-noise only the features on the ground and leave the sky intact. Maedin\^talk 05:55, 8 April 2010 (UTC)

• I'm sorry if my comment seemed harsh. Thank you for listening. --Avenue (talk) 17:30, 8 April 2010 (UTC)

• It's fine, :) If it was an April Fool's joke, then it was Muhammad's on me. Maedin\^talk 17:46, 8 April 2010 (UTC)

• Now I support either version, and prefer new edit 1. Thanks again. --Avenue (talk) 04:46, 9 April 2010 (UTC)

• Strong Support Edit 1 And I like the notes on the file as well; they were very helpful. upstateNYer 02:29, 5 April 2010 (UTC)
• Support --George Chernilevsky ^talk 05:19, 6 April 2010 (UTC)

• Comment Both variants very nice. I support both, but edit 1 is tiny better --George Chernilevsky ^talk 18:28, 10 April 2010 (UTC)

Suspend so I can fix my edit. Maedin\^talk 12:23, 8 April 2010 (UTC)

• Comment on edit: Considering Avenue's comments, I've altered the edit so that the ground only is somewhat de-noised and the sky has been left intact. Please update your vote if this changes your preference, though it looks like the original is in the lead anyway. Thanks, Maedin\^talk 17:59, 8 April 2010 (UTC)

Comments on the edit, please. Which do we prefer? Makeemlighter (talk) 01:44, 9 April 2010 (UTC)

• Support Edit 1. Fantastic image, nice edits. Eusebeus (talk) 11:30, 10 April 2010 (UTC)
• Support either, prefer edit 1. Jujutacular ^T · C 14:56, 10 April 2010 (UTC)

Promoted File:360-degree Panorama of the Southern Sky edit.jpg --Papa Lima Whiskey (talk) 09:46, 11 April 2010 (UTC)