Big Decrease in Top Pick Nominations. Why?

Interesting statistic about the decrease of awards, I’ve always thought it has increased rather than decreased.

If your stats are correct maybe the rationale behind it is that more images are being submitted for consideration than before, that would result in a more “competitive ” review queue. Which in turn makes the IOTD staff votes spread out more between the images and less images hitting the 3 vote mark to be awarded TPN?

Bill McLaughlin · Sep 7, 2026 at 06:37 PM

Rabeea Alkuwari · Sep 7, 2026, 06:32 PM

Which in turn makes the IOTD staff votes spread out more between the images and less images hitting the 3 vote mark to be awarded TPN?

You may be onto something there. Put another way, staff may only give a few “up” votes each per day and with more submissions those are being “diluted” so that getting the required three becomes less likely.

I have to wonder if that can even be fixed and if maybe AB has just gotten too big for the system to function.

Number of staff may need to increase together with the number of image submissions if the number of awards is desired to be stable. I’m not sure if the number of staff changed throughout the years or if keeping the awards numbers being stable is a target. To me I feel like awards mean something if they are scarce 😅 hence why everyone is chasing the gold

Rabeea Alkuwari · Sep 7, 2026, 06:42 PM

To me I feel like awards means something if they are scarce 😅 hence why everyone is chasing the gold

I think that is the reason for the three levels. Nomination only should not be an especially high level yet I have seen several “best of object” images that did not even get to that.

My feeling is that I really do not expect to get IOTD (despite having two I think that was just luck) - those are rare and should be. They are really a different animal for several reasons.

Even TP is not something I would expect from the majority of my images as it is still pretty high level. I did not look at the TP stats, just the nominations for TP, but I would guess there would be a similar pattern.

That is why I only looked at what is basically the “Entry Level” award of nomination. I really don’t think we should be seeing those numbers going down when one would expect the opposite assuming the same quality and your explanation as to why that is happening seems to be quite likely correct, it being simply a '‘dilution of votes” effect.

Correct me if I am wrong but reviewers who vote for TP can only pick 4 image per 24hr. I am not sure if the number of reviewers has gone up, if so in theory the numbers should go up and not down. It is possible some do not find what has been voted on by the submitters(first layer) to be enough to earn a vote. I know for myself, I am more selective what I submit to the process. Perhaps that is becoming true for others? Another thing is the switch in a user’s profile to automatically submit. Is that on by default for new users?

Lastly, with all the new software and AI tools, it is becoming easier to process good looking image. The standard for a top pick/IOTD keeps getting higher I think. Though that is not a guarantee and a few threads have discussed those with 6-figure equipment in world class skies still cannot process “better” than someone skilled in processing from a bortel 5+ site with a meager setup.

Bill McLaughlin · Sep 7, 2026, 07:35 PM

Pete Mumbower · Sep 7, 2026, 07:30 PM

Correct me if I am wrong but reviewers who vote for TP can only pick 4 image per 24hr.

I was not aware of that and it would seem crazy to leave that max number the same when the number of submissions has gone up (if that is true, which seems likely).

I have also seen images that have made it to TP when others that are nearly identical (object and FOV) have gotten nothing. Maybe the latter were not submitted but it seems like an image that good would have been.

Here is a link the IOTD process: https://welcome.astrobin.com/iotd

Stage 1 and 2 both limit how many can be voted on in a 24hr period by a submitter/reviewer. Though the submitter can do 6. Where do you see the submitted numbers at? I have not come across them, but I have not really looked for them either.

I too have seen similar images, but one gets a TP or even a nomination award and the other nothing. The big mystery is if the owner has submitted to the process. Not sure if those numbers are even known.

Pete Mumbower · Sep 7, 2026, 07:49 PM

Stage 1 and 2 both limit how many can be voted on in a 24hr period by a submitter/reviewer. Though the submitter can do 6.

OK, I suspect that is the (broken) heart 💔 of the problem! If there are, as one would expect, more submissions and the same (or lesser) number of evaluators, then that limit would have a major dilution effect on the nominations for a given image.

It would seem like this limit should be greatly increased or even eliminated. Either that or a large increase in the number of evaluators.

Quinn Groessl · Sep 7, 2026, 09:24 PM

How are you getting the numbers? If I go to the advanced search and filter by TPN and the dates you’ve used I get even worse numbers, mainly that 2024 was quite a bit higher than what you put.

Not sure why I got those but I agree, I redid it and came up with 5390 for 2024 and a projected 1534 for this year. That is more like a 71% decrease.

2025 was not as far off at 3309 but the conclusion is about the same.

Search snapshots of 2024 and 2026 (thru May) below:

📷 tpn 24.png

📷 tpn 26 to Jun.png

I don’t think it is proper to consider TPN’s alone. At the end of the day, all TP’s and IotDs were TPNs as well before moving up. The ratios between the two do change over time.

Not do be disingenuous, but sometimes it does feel like the easiest solution would just be to give every image a TPN as soon as it is uploaded. That is what these threads feel like sometimes. To throw an olive branch though, sometimes threads raising concerns are needed, but the last time there was a major concern was during a time when awards were so scare the system was actually unable to function at a 100% level. That was years ago, but we are so far removed from that now.

Let’s pretend we do hit that 1916 number. Are 160 TPN’s a month really a terrible number? One could argue that them being so high before was cheapening the awards, since people would (and have in the past) argued that the award system is meaningless since “anyone” is able to get one.

Like, that was peak crisis mode. There was such a bottleneck at the TPN level that anything that made it in was almost always going to end up as a TP or better. This of course makes no sense, because one would expect TP’s to be rarer and of a higher quality.

I mentioned ratios before, and if there is a problem, it is that we are seeing an even split between TPN’s and TP’s again. Ideally, you would want way more TPN’s than TP’s, to create a nice hierarchy of awards. But, to me the solution would be to decrease the amount of TP’s, not increase the amount of TPN’s. We are getting enough TPN’s, is just that too many of them are becoming TP’s.

The math does lead to there being more TPN than TP, just on the basis if all submitters and reviewers hit their "quota” for the day. I am sure there are days they vote for less or not at all…life happens. But being a judgement call, it is possible the acceptance rate for either TPN/TP goes up and down. It would seem that over a year a monthly average happens. When ever someone I follow posts an image or someone likes one of mine. I naturally go check out their work and it seems TPN are more numerous than TP. But that can be over many years and not recent trends.

I do hope the judges hold us to high standards. For some of us it helps drive learning and improvement. I know it has for me.

Göran Nilsson · Sep 8, 2026, 07:21 AM

Could one factor be that more and more of the submissions are images done with the new small smart telescopes. I have yet to see such images being of TPN quality.

I think this is definitely one of the factors submitters get swamped. You can often see in the “Newest“ feed strings of same quality images from smart scopes 5-10-20 in a row from a same user. And they can produce that many nightly.

If “Submit to IOTD“ option is enabled by default for new users that could be another factor. Some new users with empty galleries start filling them up with whatever they have, often uploading same image in different palette as individual images instead of revisions.

I think automatic “Submit to IOTD“ option should be eliminated completely. Even best of the best imagers here who get 5-10 IOTDs in a row and nothing less might consider to skip some images from the competition instead of the automatic option.

I think the system works great as it is. More competition, tougher it is, more valuable the prizes are.

Get better, make your work stand out if you want to compete or just enjoy looking.

kvastronomer · Sep 8, 2026, 07:53 AM

I think automatic “Submit to IOTD“ option should be eliminated completely. Even best of the best imagers here who get 5-10 IOTDs in a row and nothing less might consider to skip some images from the competition instead of the automatic option.

I agree! That might reduce the workload some. I normally have that on but occasionally turn it off for a less than ideal image. It would be nice to have it always off by default so that imagers would be forced to evaluate their own images before checking “submit”.

OTOH, on the subject of smart scopes I would guess few, if any, images from smart scopes would come even close to nomination standards so would only take a second to eliminate.

Bill McLaughlin · Sep 8, 2026, 01:58 PM

kvastronomer · Sep 8, 2026, 07:53 AM

I think automatic “Submit to IOTD“ option should be eliminated completely. Even best of the best imagers here who get 5-10 IOTDs in a row and nothing less might consider to skip some images from the competition instead of the automatic option.

I agree! That might reduce the workload some. I normally have that on but occasionally turn it off for a less than ideal image. It would be nice to have it always off by default so that imagers would be forced to evaluate their own images before checking “submit”.

OTOH, on the subject of smart scopes I would guess few, if any, images from smart scopes would come even close to nomination standards so would only take a second to eliminate.

I very much agree with this, make the submitting of an image manual. Just remove the default always submit option. Like you said, it would force everyone to think that the image meets the standards (well I hope they would). The goal is really to not overwhelm the reviewers. I believe it was not too long ago that they increased the number of “judges” at all 3 stages.