Metablog Update #14 - Welcome 2025!
Jan 7, 2025
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Happy New Year!
I hope everybody had a wonderful holiday, and we are all looking forward to a new year of clear skies!
When I first launched the website, I hoped to post a quarterly Metablog to keep everyone updated on what was going on with Cosgrove’s Cosmos. However, this past year has been so busy that it’s working out to be more like twice a year.
Some of the things keeping me busy come from just moving to a new house and then settling in.
Another aspect that has consumed a lot of time is the Observatory project, which is why we moved in the first place.
One thing that has not been consuming my time is Astrophotography - and this is most unfortunate. I hope this will change in a big way once the observatory is operational!
The Observatory Project
I have created a whole series of blog posts and YouTube videos for the project, so I will not say much more here.
The project has hit the winter weather- which will cause some scheduling delays. ( By now, I am petty sick of delays!)
I will highlight that I have finally chosen a name for it!
you will now hear me refer to it as the Whispering Skies Astrophotographic Observatory!
The Logo I will use for the observatory.
The sign that I will have made for the observatory.
Suffice it to say that this project has been harder and more frustrating than I ever thought, and I am more than ready to complete this as soon as possible.
Once the contractor finishes up, I can pretty much make it operational. But as we roll into the new year, I will still be working on many things both inside and outside the observatory.
Here is a list of the most recent posts:
Setting Up For Operations
Once the contractor completes his work, it will be time to install the telescopes!
First, I must install the steel piers and ensure the tops are level. Then, adapter plates will be attached to the top of the piers to support the mounts I now have.
My Steel Piers.
One of my Adapter plates.
The Fanless Micro-PC that I will be using
Then, the scope platforms will be installed. First, the mounts, and then the optical tube assemblies.
I will be making some changes here.
In the past, I have used laptops to control each telescope. This time around, I will mount a fanless micro-PC and run NINA on it to control things. The computer that controls the roof system will connect to these headless PCs and control them. I can also connect to them with the large monitors from my Astro Man Cave in the house.
Finally, I will have WiFi switches on the power outlets so I can remotely reboot the computers as needed.
I will blog about this configuration as I do it, so stay tuned!
The Fourth Pier
I currently have three telescope platforms. The Observatory will have four piers. So what about the 4th pier?
That is an excellent question; I will devote some serious time to this in the months ahead.
My goal is to have a Galaxy Scope in this position. Something with a longer focal length than I now have but with a fast optical system that will let me pursue small and faint targets.
My Current “Galaxy Scope” - The Astro-Physics 130 EDT.
Currently, the best rig I have for this is the Astro-Physics 130 EDT scope. It has a focal length of 1080mm and an f-ratio of 8.35. It does a good job, but something with a bit more focal length and faster optics would be best.
At this point, I have no firm requirements, so my first task will be to establish them. Then, I will begin searching for the most reasonable solution.
Why not the best solution? Because I just spent a bajillion dollars on the observatory - some compromises may need to be accommodated!
Finally - I am planning on a future 5th pier!
A 5th Pier? Where am I going to put that?
Well, not here. My long-range plans involve sending an instrument to one of the remote dark-site telescope farms that are becoming available.
My Most Recent Imaging Projects
Unfortunately, the last half of 2024 has been miserable for imaging. The move, settling in, the observatory, the weather, and the summer forest fire smoke all took their toll!
Once the observatory excavation was done, I had a nice level place to set up a scope—with 180’ of extension cords running from the house! I collected data for a few nights and experienced my new location's much more open skies!
This allowed me to collect data on a few new targets in the last half of the year.
This ended when the construction of the observatory began. I keep telling myself that this is OK, as next year, I will have the convenience of the observatory to make up for my loss of sky time this year.
In addition to these few new images, I also did a reprocessing project. A few years back, I collected data from Messier 31. I always loved this image, but I wondered what it would be like to process that data today with methods and tools that have evolved significantly over the last couple of years. I was really pleased with the final result and was glad I had taken the time to dive back into that data!
Website Status
Earlier this year, Cosgrove’s Cosmos celebrated its three-year Anniversary. At that time, I reported a summary of the traffic to the site.
Currently, we are getting an average of 450 visitors a day, but we often see days with 600 to 800 visitors. This is up from the 200 visitors we were getting six months ago.
In the first year, we averaged about 50 visitors a day
In the second year, we averaged about 150 visitors a day
We are currently at 450.
I am glad to report that the second half of the year showed even greater growth! As we close out the year, we are now averaging over 600 visits a day and often have days with over 1,000 visitors!
Most of this traffic comes from two sources:
Direct - which means that people are entering CosgrovesCosmos.com to get here. This means they are aware of the site and are returning.
Search—This means they were searching for astronomy or astrophotography terms, and my site came up early in the listing and was selected.
Both of these are significant signs of the website's health. It is nice to see that it is growing slowly but steadily. This tells me that people are finding the content interesting or useful, and I could not ask for more than that!
Improving the Web Site
It’s been 3 years since I launched the website. I created the basic design and organization on day one and have pretty much stuck with that since then. But I think it is time to look at it again with objective eyes and see what can be done to enhance the user experience.
This can involve content, layout, and/or design.
To that end, I seek suggestions and feedback on what changes you would welcome.
Sometimes, you are so close to something that you don’t see the forest for the trees - so outside perspectives would be valued!
Social Media Presence
For a while now, I have had a Social Media presence for Cosgrove’s Cosmos.
Some of this is geared towards promoting the site, and some are geared towards sharing specific content in specific forums.
Early on, this was a critical source of traffic. Currently, this is not the case. A relatively small portion of the traffic is due to referrals from social media. Initially, I was not sure why this would be the case. Then I realized that the traffic generated by these sources was relatively constant, but it was being swamped by increasing traffic coming through search and direct access.
Facebook: I first started posting my work on Facebook, and I still use Facebook a lot to promote awareness of new posts. At this point, I have over 11,000 followers! The best response I get on Facebook is with Imaging Project posts. Since I have had relatively few of those this year, the growth here has slowed.
X: Earlier this year, I said, “X used to be a wonderful platform for sharing astrophotography. But no more. The sharing engine has changed dramatically, and posts no longer seem to get the visibility they used to have.”
This continues to be the case; if anything, I think it has worsened.
Some of this is due to the fact that members of the astrophotography community seem to be migrating away from X due to controversies brought on by the new owner. But I think a lot of this is also due to how they have changed the algorithms used to promote content.
It used to be that when I posted an imaging project, I received hundreds of responses. Now, I receive only a handful. I thought it was just me and the quality of my content, but I have talked with others who have seen the same results after changes were made at X.
I currently have 2,714 followers, but I am seriously considering dropping X and moving to something like BlueSky. I would be interested in your thoughts on this.
YouTube: I have been documenting the observatory build with video and images. I find that YouTube is an excellent medium for reporting on the build process. As a result, I have posted a string of videos on my channel sharing the progress as it occurs.
Here are some of my YouTube statistics:
Followers: 1,924 - getting close to the 2,000 mark!
Lifetime Views: 96,600
Hours Viewed: 5,400
Instagram: I mainly use this to share imaging projects, and since I have had a few of them, I have not been very active with Instagram for the past year.
Astrobin: Astrobin is the international Astrophotography Mecca. Most serious (and non-serious) astrophotographers have an account here and share their work. I always share my image projects there, but I also have started sharing the videos from the observation build.
Health Update
Recently, I have had a few questions about how I am doing since the health scare I had a little over a year ago. A Kidney tumor was found, and I had a partial nephrectomy on the left side. As I have shared before, the pathology report came back as benign - which is both a surprise and a blessing!
I just had an 18-month MRI follow-up, and the news here is all good. No sign of a return of the tumor. We got this news just before the holidays, and it certainly set the tone for the rest of the year!
Again, thank you all for your kindness and support during this. I appreciate it. I feel fortunate that things turned out as well as they did.
All of this makes me want to work even harder on the Observatory. None of us really knows how much time we have left, so it makes sense to do the things you really want to do in life while you still can!
Wrap-Up
That’s where things stand today!
I am really looking forward to getting the observatory operational and getting back into a mode where my focus is on creating great images of the universe and sharing those projects!
Please remember that I am always seeking your feedback and suggestions,- so please feel free to reach out at any time.
Clear Skies,
Pat
