"Reality has become a luxury item." These words cut to the heart of a transformation sweeping through astronomy as artificial intelligence rewrites the rules of astrophotography. 

Imagine spending years mastering the complex art of capturing distant galaxies and nebulae, only to watch someone with a smartphone app and no astronomical knowledge produce "better" images in minutes. This is the reality confronting traditional astrophotographers today, as AI tools explode from 2 million users to 47 million in just two years.

The veteran astronomer's perspective is both fascinating and troubling. What we're witnessing isn't democratization of astrophotography but rather democratization of its appearance. The difference matters. Traditional astrophotography required understanding optics, tracking, atmospheric conditions, and image processing—a learning curve that provided genuine astronomical knowledge. Today's AI tools handle everything automatically, creating a generation that can produce stunning cosmic imagery without understanding what they're actually seeing.

Most concerning is how AI creates an idealized version of space—cleaner, brighter, and more detailed than reality. This "AI astronomy aesthetic" is becoming the new standard, with impossibly perfect spiral arms and nebula structures appearing in images taken from light-polluted cities where such detail capture should be physically impossible. We're entering a cycle of "recursive fabrication" where AIs train on previous AI-enhanced images, progressively distancing our visual representation of space from reality.

For those who still value authentic connection to the cosmos, there's something profound about capturing actual photons that traveled light-years to reach your sensor, even if the resulting image is less visually impressive than its AI-enhanced counterparts. Have you ever wondered if what you're seeing in today's breathtaking space images is real or fabricated? Perhaps it's time we all asked that question more often.