Cosgrove’s Cosmos Metablog Update #10!
March 23, 2023
Hi Folks,
I thought it was time to share an update on what has been happening with Cosgrove's Cosmos since the last Metablog post
Table of Contents Show (Click on lines to navigate)
Web Site Analytics
Traffic
The website has been showing slow but steady growth.
The average number of visitors during its first year was about 30 per day, now over 150 per day.
We had about 10K visitors during the first full year of operation. We are now eight months into the second year, and so far, we have had 30K visitors and seem to be on track for 40K visitors by the end of the year. A growth of 4X in the second year is not too shabby!
Users and sessions from the first full year of operations.
Users and Sessions so far - 8 months into the second year.
Sources
Early on, one of the major sources of visitors was social media, with two of the largest sources being Twitter and Facebook. But as you looks at the analytics for the year-to-date, that is clearly changing.
Most of my traffic is either coming “Direct” or from “Google.”
Traffic Sources for the Year-to-Date
“Direct” implies repeat visitors that have bookmarked the site.
“Google” is from internet searches, where more and more often, Cosgrove’s Cosmos is coming up on the first pages of search results.
Both of these sources are gratifying to see.
Facebook still is a strong driver. It sends less traffic to the website than the first two sources. Still, Facebook has a set of rich astronomy-based communities that drive some really interesting engagement.
One of the biggest changes is in Twitter. Twitter had a very rich and interactive Astrophotography community in the
past. But about the time that Elon Musk took over Twitter, this seems to have changed. Many active members of the Twitter Astrophotography community announced they were quitting the platform. Further, I have seen many complaints that Tweet no longer seems to get the response it used to get when it came to astrophotography. As if the engine that puts tweets into your Twitter stream is not as effective as it once was. I have no idea if this is true, but I can say that the responses I get are much less than they were in the past. And the traffic that Twitter is now driving to the website is minuscule. This is all sad. I really enjoyed interacting with the folks in the Astrophotography Twitter Sphere, and I miss those days!
Astrophotography is a niche effort, so I never thought the website would ever become a big deal. But it has been a fun outlet for me and a great way of sharing my astrophotography.
I am pleased to see that we continue to have modest growth, and I am even more pleased by the feedback I have received from folks who find the content helpful as they navigate the learning curve of Astrophotography.
Image Capture
One of the things that have not been happening is capturing new images!
The weather and some health issues have gotten in the way, and I have not captured a single photon since the last update! I find this to be personally very frustrating!
In some ways, this is what usually happens. Winters in Rochester, NY, are cloudy affairs with few clear nights. This is a shame because some of my favorite sections of the sky are overhead during these winter months! Last year my first capture opportunity did not occur until April, and it looks like this year will be similar.
Still, I hope we will have some great capture sessions in the coming year!
Technical Postings
Web Posts
Since I am not capturing photons, I have worked hard on technical articles and videos. Since the last Metablog, I have published the following article:
These articles are posted on the website, and each has a video companion that is posted on the website as well as my Youtube channel:
YouTube Posts
I have pushed harder over the winter to develop my Youtube Channel and video skills.
I am finding that video is something that is very difficult to do well, and I have had my growing pains with it!
I have also been developing my video skills (slowly).
I have become comfortable with using iMovie to create my videos, but I had found that there were times when this simple-to-use tool was holding me back. So I have shifted to Final Cut Pro and begun to learn how to use its more advanced capabilities.
I now have 67 videos on the channel. They say that it takes someone 50 videos to get good at it. I think in my case that number is more likely to be around 100 videos…. or more. ;-)
Check it out here: https://www.youtube.com/@cosgrovescosmos
My Youtube Channel!
2-Minute Tutorial Series
I also made a surprising finding.
I had a short video showing a problem with my CEM26 mount, and I was having trouble hosting it on YouTube as a private video and linking to it from my web page. So as an experiment, I made this 15-second short video public and tried linking it.
It still did not work. I was going to make the video private again but forgot to do so.
The next morning I found that it had several hundred views overnight! It was really a "nothing" video, so I was surprised. I wondered if the fact that it was short was the attraction.
So I decided to try an experiment. I created a short two-minute video showing how I use color masks to do focused color adjustments in Pisinsight. That video got a much stronger response than my previous videos!
So I created a series that I called "2-Minute Tutorials.”
Each video in this series is short and focused on one narrow topic. Of course, not all are 2 minutes long - some are as long as 15 minutes! But still, the series has been very popular, and I have gotten some great feedback on them.
They are both easier to make and easier to consume! I now have made 35 videos in the series.
The 2-Minute Tutorial Series
The videos are on my youtube channel, and they are available from my Website as well.
Channel Growth
The Cosgrove's Cosmos Youtube channel is slowly growing.
I first created the channel at about the same time as I created the website. I mostly used it for a long time to host private videos that I could link to from my website. But early on, I did post some public videos - but for a long time, nothing much was happening there.
Then things began to pick up starting last August when I first started to add video elements to my web postings. Since then, things have started to grow, as you can see in the curve below.
I now have slightly under 750 subscribers, 18K views, and I just hit the 1000 hours on the watched video metric. I am slowly beginning to get some traction!
Screen snap from my the analytics page of my Youtube Channel, showing the recent growth trends.
Recent Improvements to the Website
Table Of Contents/ Scroll To Top
The postings of my imaging projects and technical articles can be quite long in some cases. To make navigating these postings more convenient, I have started using a new capability that does two things:
It creates a Table of Contents section that can be expanded and navigated
It adds a "Scroll to Top" button on the lower right corner of the page so that you can get back to the menus easily
I have added these new features to most pages now.
Here is a sample page from my Heart of the Heart project, showing the collapsed Table of Contents section at the top, and the “Scroll to Top” button ( in the red box) at the bottom right.
Here is the Table of Contents section - now expanded. Each line can be clicked on and you can go directly to that portion of the post!
New Video Sections
In the last Update, I mentioned creating a new video section under the Home Menu. Since then, I have continued to populate this page with new video content as it is published on my Youtube Channel. All videos will go here except for the “2-Minute Tutorial” Series, which, as you will see, will have its own section.
New Video section!
There are two sections under the “Tips & Techniques” Menu, highlighting the 2-Minute Tutorials Series.
The first shows the videos curated by topic:
https://cosgrovescosmos.com/2-minute-tutorials
The second shows the videos sorted by the date they were created:
The new “2-Minute Tutorial” menu options
The Observatory Project
A year ago, I published a posting about my desire to buy and build my own observatory. Then a year went by with no updates. I finally published a new update on the project, which can be seen here:
https://cosgrovescosmos.com/observatory/observatory-update-one-year-in
Since then, a lot more work has gone on behind the scenes. While I still do not have land to build on yet, a lot of work has gone on with the design.
I will have to create a new post covering this, but working with others and with some critical help from my friend Rick Albrecht, we have:
Spec’ed out the components for the roller/track system that will allow the roof to roll
Designed a system of manual lockdown toggles to secure the roof to the walls when the observatory is not in use. This includes a way of interlocking the drive system so that it will not try to operate should the manual lockdowns be engaged.
An initial design of a passive interlock system so that the observatory roof is locked to the walls as a part of the roof closing to the closed position
Some initial thoughts for the drive system.
I have approved the observatory plans from the Architect so I am now awaiting the stamped blueprints!
Now all I have to do is find some land! Stay tuned….
The Print Shop
In a previous Metablog, I had shared that I intended to add a print store section to the website so that folks could order prints of any of my images if they had a mind to. I thought such a feature would automate things and take me out of the loop. It would also raise a few dollars that could be used to defray web hosting costs.
The plan was to work on this during the cloudy time we are now in. However, that has not happened.
I would still like to move forward on this, but I must carve out the time needed to complete it.
A Personal Note
As I mentioned, I have been dealing with a health issue that has required some time and energy to address. As a result of this, I will be going in for surgery in early April.
The expected recovery time will also slow me down. For example, I will not be allowed to lift any weight for a while - so I will have to get by this before I can set the scopes up in the driveway again.
So, there may be a lull in my postings, some missed image capture time, and I may be a bit slower in responding to some notes.
But fear not, I will get to the other side of this, and I am eager to get this behind me and dive into another great year of image capture, image processing, and web and video development!
Once again - I would like to thank everyone for their continued interest and support!
All the best,
Pat
Astrophotographers love to share their images, and getting published in a major Astronomy Magazine is the ultimate form of sharing!
Several people have asked me to write a post about how went about getting published. I am far from being an expert in this area, but I am happy to share what I do, and what seems to work for me!
Follow these tips, and you may well soon see your own images in print!