I wrote on my ThePolyblog.ca site about “needing” to write an astronomy guide, but not really being that thrilled about it. The issue is that there are a few fora that I participate in for astronomy, and I really don’t like the way people answer certain questions. It almost seems irresponsible to me to answer the questions like they do.

For example, if someone said to you, “I want to buy a vehicle”, would you say, “Oh, you should buy (this specific model)”? Probably not. You’d ask them what they want to use it for, how often they’ll be driving it, how many passengers, etc. The car they use to go shopping around town once a week is probably not the vehicle they need for hauling pigs, if they have pigs to haul. And a whole host of other variables, which is partly why there are so many cars on the market. They serve different market niches. But someone out there could probably just say “Get a Honda Civic”. The basis for their recommendation is relatively linear — a good all-around sedan, and if you don’t have any other details, maybe it’s as good a recommendation as any, probably better.

Yet, for astronomy, people frequently respond with:

1. Just look up with your eyes — the equivalent of telling someone just to walk instead of buying a car;
2. Buy binoculars — like saying to get a bus pass;
3. Buy a Dobsonian — the Honda Civic of cars, a good all-around suggestion;
4. Buy a large EQ mount with an expensive refractor and some good camera gear — the equivalent of telling someone they need off-roading capabilities so they can get all the way to the top of a nearby mountain because that is the biggest / hardest use to handle; or,
5. Don’t buy (brand x)—this is the same as those who will tell you never to buy a Ford or Dodge or American or Japanese, whatever, because someone they once knew had a bad experience 40 years ago with a bicycle owned by someone who drove one of those vehicles one-time as a rental. I.e., their reasons have nothing to do with the current models, nor have they tried any of them, but they have strong views.

If you go to a proper telescope store (if you can find one still in business), they’ll ask you a bunch of questions just like a car dealership. And it is THOSE types of questions that will help you find the type of scope that is right for you. Every time that I see someone has written a guide to telescopes, I get excited that maybe I won’t have to write my version because someone already did it and did it better. And then I see that, in most cases, they either approached it as a budget question (what’s available in your price range) OR some decent options in each type of scope. It is kind of like what Consumer Reports does — they tell you what are some good washing machines or air fryers in a given price range, rated against some basic criteria of usage (capacity, physical size, power, etc.). But if you look around a CR site, you’ll also notice that they often publish a pre-guide of sorts — like “how to choose the right washing machine for you” or “what do you need to know about air fryers before you buy one”. Everybody seems to write the pricing guide version; nobody wants to write the other version. The version that says what to do to the person who is likely to show up on a site and say, “I like space / my kids are interested in space. What kind of telescope should I buy?”. They have no idea what questions to ask and nobody to guide them as they decide.

So, yeah, I’m writing some astronomy guide(s)

The first volume is simple and will be a general overview of astronomy with a hefty middle section about types of telescope variables, what different types are available, and even some good models of that type. A combination CR-style pre-guide with a normal pricing guide to good models of each type. I’ve toyed with JUST doing the scope guide, but I don’t think it is enough of an itch for me. I want to include a basic approach to understanding astronomy as a discipline, where observers fit in the grand scheme of things, perhaps a history of astronomy, an overview of what’s out there, the “technical” side for scopes and binos, how to use and setup each type, some thoughts on ongoing usage, navigation, accessories, etc. Then the book will feel like I’m creating something, not just covering technical stuff.

And I do have ideas for other guides, more creative on my side, and designed to help push me in the hobby. I am not sure of the exact order of the subsequent volumes, but I may do books on:

1. Constellations and asterisms — things you can see with your eyes and some guide materials…part of what interests me is finding ways to combine not just Western / white history of constellations but also other cultures, like perhaps coming up with a combination of my own which would be the “best of the constellations” from multiple cultures?;
2. The moon — with coverage of each of the 28 days in the cycle and what to look for;
3. The sun — I am not sure this is a whole book, could be merged with other stuff;
4. The planets — my focus (no pun intended) is generally on observations, and again, I don’t know that I can do a whole book on this;
5. The Messier objects — this set has the opposite problem…it is more than enough for a book if I do it right, although heavily photograph- and starmap-based;
6. Spotlights on globular clusters, coloured stars, comets and/or asteroids.

I am not thrilled with open clusters or star groups; they both seem really boring to me. I also don’t know that I have any added value on Nebulae or Galaxies as there are lots of materials already out there with far better equipment than mine. Similarly for double stars. I might mention them as part of some other omnibus. And in addition to all those topics, I wonder if I have an itch to scratch for weather mapping, apps in general, and observatory options. Oh, and I’d love to do something about outreach options. And then there’s the one that scares me…an introduction to astrophotography and processing. That is WAY beyond my abilities at the moment.

But I need to start with my cover design and my logo

When I did my layout for the cover of my HR guide, I knew there would be other books. So I slapped my frog on it, and branded it as a series of books called “A PolyWogg Guide to Government”. If I were to go back, I might consider adding a little Canadian flag to the chest of the frog or the duck below, but I like it enough as is. And before I finished the guide, the cover served as visual motivation for me to keep writing.

For astronomy, I kind of like the same layout. The title, subtitle, name, website and swath across the top will stay. I’m looking at changing the colour of the swath but I am not sure to what yet. The text is easy: “A PolyWogg Guide to Astronomy”.

But I have been questioning if the frog should change. It is still PolyWogg; it is still me. I could leave it as is. But I like the idea of adding some sort of space theme to it. I could do some sort of heading like I had for a section of my website at one point, with a good Milky Way background and a regular space-themed logo of some kind.

Yet I like the idea of having my frog involved. I reached out to my contractor on Fiverr to see if they could take my frog and just add a telescope to it, make it look aligned so it was looking through with the left eye, perhaps. They can do compositing for about $30 an image, so yes, they can do it. But it’s not their primary business line, and he wondered if, instead, I just wanted to try something with the various AIs out there.

I confessed that I had tried that, but I am far from an expert. Most of the images that I generated often had both in the result — a frog and a telescope — but rarely did it look like the frog was using it. It was more often than not a frog sitting on a long, thin telescope lens, as if it was a tree branch. Some gave me really weird results where the telescope was actually going through the head of the frog and coming out its eye. Shudder. It did have both themes, frog and scope, but getting them to interact wasn’t successful.

I wondered instead if I went for some sort of Dreamworks logo where instead of the kid fishing from the crescent moon, what if I had a frog on it? My first options were more like it was on a banana. Or swiss cheese. The moon was consistently yellow (I assume resembling cheese?). I reframed the prompt as red-eyed tree frog sitting on white crescent moon with craters, and it was better, but well, see for yourself. The frog is okay in the first one, not thrilled with the moon. And the frog seems to be enjoying it way too much.

I like the moon better in this one, but not much, and I am not as thrilled with the frog.

The moon is silly, but the frog is kind of cute.

This one was my first “winner” or at least good enough to consider. It emphasizes the moon over the frog, but the frog is pretty cute. And since it is basically serving as a logo, I can’t have the image too complicated.

I then went a bit broader. I tried a bunch of options where it was the frog staring up at the moon. One was really cool as a picture, but the AI couldn’t seem to figure out right from left. The frog was looking to the right but the moon was in the top left corner. You can revise the prompt, but no matter what I did, it would never move the moon closer than the middle of the image. I went for more cartoon-style options. And I got the ones below. I like the more realistic moon in this one, definitely a decent option. It’s on my list. I’m not sure how the background will show up in the cover, but that’s the contractor’s problem. 🙂

I like the relative spacing of this one, good moon. Not sold on the frog angle, nor the random bubbles in the background. Meh.

I really like this one, although the frog looks off somehow. A little too cartoony in the head, if that makes sense. But it makes it look like the frog is looking at the moon.

I like the lilypads, framing, and a somewhat dull moon that is not overblown. But I don’t like the frog or spacing vis-a-vis the moon.

There is a lot to like in his image. The pond, the lilypads, the moon is bright but not overblown, clouds. Even the moonlight on the water. There is a LOT to like in this. But the frog looks more like its back is to the moon, even with shadow coming off the body, so what is the frog looking at? The sky? A firefly? I wondered if maybe I could tell it to tweak it and face the moon more, but as this was one of the paid AIs, multiple regenerations cost money and I still have more to do. Plus I’m not likely going to sell the guides sooooo cost is an issue.

I love 95% of this one. The moon and sky are almost perfect (rather not round bubbles for stars, but whatever). The moon is a gorgeous example. And the frog is sort of looking at the moon, but well, not completely and he looks sort of fat and dumpy. Did I just body shame a frog? I’m losing it here.

Good frog, could sort of be looking at the moon, but not quite. And I’m not thrilled with the moon.

At the end, I wondered, what if I just did a night sky with the frog looking up, and no moon to pull focus. Most of the options weren’t awesome, but this one snuck through my pickiness. Cute frog, wide-eyed innocence (one of the reasons I like these types of frogs), and the sky isn’t bad. Plus no moon to pull focus, as I said, so you get the sense the frog is just “looking up”. I started to think this was the way forward.

Leonardo, where have you been all my life?

The contractor suggested another tool. Leonardo.AI is similar to many others, but allows you to modify existing images somewhat, and I thought, “Sure, why not?”. It has a bunch of free credits for you to try things, and some upgrade options to buy a bunch of tokens so you can try it out more (same as Civit.ai, which a friend recommended and I bought $10 worth of tokens to get going).

I inputted the basic prompt — red-eyed tree frog with telescope — and hit generate. With most AIs, I have had to reframe it / tweak it in subsequent versions to say cartoon frog or looking through telescope, etc. It generated four images. The first was a weird-looking version of the frog sitting under a scope. Meh, nothing to write home about.

The second was a better frog, this time standing behind a brass version of a telescope. Not awesome, but not bad. The scope itself is on an EQ mount, which is a level of detail none of the others ever bothered with. Except the scope looks more like a video camera almost. I mean, I know what it is, but I specifically chose the parameters. Others might not be able to tell it was a scope.

The fourth had the frog standing behind the scope, the scope is angled up, wait wait wait, and noooo. The frog isn’t looking through it, looks almost like it is eating it although when you zoom in, the chin is just on the edge of the scope. Soooo close.

But the third one I skipped over? We may have a winner.

It’s the right type of frog. I was able to remove the background (wood floor, some sort of smoke rising from a campfire or something, maybe on a deck?). The scope is a brass refractor (which did exist) with a very simple tripod and mount. And holy smokes, the frog is VERY CLEARLY trying to look through it. I didn’t even TELL it to do that, I just said next to scope.I’d love to see the green part of the head about 10% darker green to match my original frog better, but that would be beyond picky. If this works for the contractor (and it comes 1032px x 1032px, which is decent resolution). I might have my new logo. For free. With all commercial rights.

What do you think? Will this frog work as a logo? This is about the size for thumbnail.