The following letter was e-mailed to as many Clubs as possible. If you know of someone that may be interested in our services or contest, please forward them a copy of this letter or direct them to our web site. Thank you all!

Dear Club President:

We’d like to introduce ourselves to your astronomy club. We are Imagetech-Ontario (http://www.imagetech-ontario.com/). Our primary business is to enlarge and print astronomical images and photographs.

We are the only company in the world dedicated to enlarging and printing your astronomical imaging. We rely on a Chromograph – the best piece of hardware to do the job. In the 1990s, the Chromograph cost US$750,000, but it was rendered obsolete from commercial production at our printing plant (http://imatec.com/), because it works slowly and far exceeds today's enlargement needs. This level of quality is no longer required in today's commercial printing applications, but it certainly is in astronomy imaging. This is what sets Imagetech-Ontario apart from any other commercial enlargement company.

We also sell images, and will broker the sale of your images on a commission basis.

We have four main reasons for contacting your club.

1. Imaging and Processing Contests!

Several astronomy imaging and processing contests are planned for the next year, with one starting soon. Imagetech-Ontario and Diffraction Limited will cosponsor a contest that runs from October 1 to December 15, 2005. Diffraction Limited (http://www.cyanogen.com) produces a suite of astronomy software such as MaxIm DL. To find out more about this imaging contest, visit http://www.imagetech-ontario.com/contestmaximdlccd/index.htm

2. Learning Center

We want to develop online information to help astrophotographers take and process better pictures. We want to provide a forum for educational purposes, so everyone can make great astronomy images. We would like everyone to contribute to this section, even if they do not use our services. The answers to questions such as those listed below are just the starting point for the educational forum discussions:

· Why are my stars bloated? How do we reduce star bloat?
· Why are my stars egg-shaped or crescent-shaped?
· How long should the exposure be?
· How many flat, bias and dark frames should I use?
· What are the black or white spots that I see after applying flat, bias and dark frames? How do I get rid of these spots?
· How can we smooth the background while improving the sharpness of the foreground?
· When sharpening an image, black rings sometimes appear around the stars. What are these rings? How can we get rid of them?
· What are the benefits of various processing techniques, such as adding co-added and blurred luminescence frames to LRGB images? [This is a technique for image processing in which we take a number of luminescence frames, add them together, blur them and then add them to a compiled picture that consists of four parts – Luminescence, Red, Green and Blue (LRGB) co-added frames. This helps to bring out the details in the spiral arms of a galaxy.]
· How do you add Ha and Hb to LRGB images? [These are Hydrogen Alpha and Hydrogen Beta filters. They are specific to capturing very narrow light wavelengths, and are added to the picture to bring out details.]

Our web site features a display of “problem pictures” in which viewers can compare their problem pictures to these ones (see http://www.imagetech-ontario.com/education/problemimages.htm). We explain what is wrong and how to fix it. Your problem photo contributions are welcome.

It is our hope that, as your astrophotography skills improve, you may someday want to use our image-enlarging services.

3. Print on demand

Many clubs incur costs for educating the public. Imagetech-Ontario will support your club’s educational efforts by selling at our not-for-profit rate. This special rate will help you to offset the costs associated with carrying the astronomy message to the public. It will also allow your club to make a few dollars to offset some of your event-related expenses. This offer is only available through the club president. (8½”-x-11” laminations sell the best at club events with the public.)

Imagetech-Ontario will support individual efforts to directly sell images over the Internet, and will print on demand. This means that you do not have to order prints in advance of sales.

4. Coming Soon: It’s a job offer!

We will create a photo registry for the general public. If a person or organization wishes to purchase a picture, Imagetech-Ontario will facilitate the sale on behalf of the contributing astrophotographer, who will be advised of the pending transaction. When a three-way agreement is reached, Imagetech-Ontario will process the transaction and a commission will be paid to the astrophotographer. We will display your “for sale images” on our web site at no charge.
If a customer requests a specific image that is not currently available, Imagetech-Ontario will post the request on its web site. If the astrophotographer is interested in providing or shooting the desired image, Imagetech-Ontario should be advised and we will make arrangements. The astrophotographer will be paid a commission.

We ask that you distribute this e-mail to all your club members.

Thank you.

Cordially,

John Courtney
President, Imagetech-Ontario
2826 Goodin Road, R.R. #2
Spencerville, ON KOE 1XO
Tel. 1-888-658-3443 (toll free)
Tel. 1-613-658-3443
http://www.imagetech-ontario.com/