As I lay in my hotel room bed fast asleep, dreaming of Boeing 757's racing back and forth across my astrophoto's, I was suddenly awakened by a loud commotion. As I reached for the light switch I was startled to see a strange looking figure staring down at me from the shadows. He seemed vaguely familiar to me, but I couldn't quite make out his face. As my eyes adjusted I could see he was wearing a fly fisherman styled vest with all of the pockets stuffed with rolls of Tech Pan. He also had a tattoo on his left arm that read "Schmidt Cameras Rule" and the other arm had a tattoo that read "You can have my film when you pry it from my cold dead hands". I started to ask "who are you" when he said, "I'm the Ghost of Astrophotography Past", and he motioned for me to follow him. I pulled on my LLBean slippers and away we went.
Before I could blink we were standing over a large observing field with a good number of people doing astrophotography. At first the whole scene seemed normal, but then I realized every one was using film. There wasn't a digital camera or CCD camera to be found. There weren't any autoguiders and people were standing over their eyepieces manually guiding! It was a sight to behold. I was about to ask where are the digital imagers when I realized this was in the past. I started seeing some of the faces in the red lights and I was sure I could make out Jerry, Chris, Robert, Chuck, Martin, and many more of the pioneer astrophotographers, and they all looked a lot younger!!!
About that time, the Ghost of Astrophotography Past motioned for me to follow him. When I turned around we were suddenly in a real dark room and someone was processing film and doing actual prints. I had heard stories about this sort of thing, but had never actually witnessed it first hand. Wow! I didn't see a scanner or computer anywhere. The photos were great, but it sure seemed to take a lot of trial and error to produce the final image. Suddenly I found myself in my room again and thought to myself, it must have been a dream.
I was sound asleep once again when I was awakened by a strange noise. I couldn't believe it, there was another odd looking fellow staring at me from the shadows. He was wearing a hat that said, "Photoshop Guru", I couldn't see his face, but he sure seemed familiar. He motioned for me to follow him and said "I'm the Ghost of Astrophotography Present". As I fell over my suit case I found myself standing over the same observing field. Things seemed a little more normal this time, but the sky didn't seem quite as dark, there was a glow on the horizon in several directions. As we made our way around the field I saw laptop computers and heard the familiar sounds of GOTO mounts slewing around the sky. There was the occasional ST4 clicking away where someone was using film, but not very many. This time there were digital cameras and CCD cameras everywhere. People were relaxing and talking as their computerized scopes seemed to do most of the work, even the few film guys left their cameras to the autoguiders. I heard a few people talking about the latest large format CCD chips and what would be next for digital imagers, but there wasn't much discussion about film.
The fellow I was with motioned to me again and I found myself in a room with a fellow working away at his computer. He was fast quick with the mouse and keyboard and I could tell he was at home with this style of processing. As I watched he began to print a beautiful image of M51, I was sure I recognized this guy! He's one of the best. I was surprised to see that all of his film gear was packed away and even he had a large format CCD camera.
Suddenly I was in my room again. I know this must have been a dream. When I was awakened again, I knew the routine, I got out of bed and once again pulled on my LLBean slippers and said, "I know, I know, you're the Ghost of Astrophotography Future". I didn't even recognize this guy at all, but he had a T-shirt that read "Hubble images are for wimps". He led the way and I followed. What I saw next was very sad indeed. We were once again on the observing field but this time there was a group on the left and right side of the fields. The group on the left was standing in a circle surrounding something. As I moved in closer I could see a guy on the ground kneeling over something and there was a tombstone behind him. Etched on the tombstone was "Here lies the last great astrophotography film, may it rest in peace, Technical Pan film" the date was April 2005. That's only 4 months I yelled! The guy on the ground was some sort of Doctor and he looked up and said "It's dead Jim". Someone screamed, "Can't you do something?", He said, "I'm a Dr. of Computer Science, not a film maker".
When I looked at the other side of the field I saw CCD chips as big as 120 format film. Digital Camera's were everywhere without a film camera in sight. One by one most of the film guys headed in that direction, but there were a few just standing around with empty cameras shaking their heads. I was very sad, but I knew it was true. Even I had gone digital over the last year and was down to one large roll of Tech Pan film and a bunch of expired rolls of RG200.
When I awoke, I was in a cold sweat. I jumped up and looked at my calender on the wall. There was still time! I ran to the store and realized there was a huge sale on digital cameras and CCD cameras, well not really, but there were lots to choose from. I wanted to buy a camera for all of my friends, but alas, there was only enough money for one, it was mine, mine, mine! I ran from the store shouting "Clear skies to all and Merry Christmas"!