Cosgrove’s Cosmos Update #3
August 18, 2021
Time for another Cosgrove's Cosmos update!
Hi Folks,
Cosgrove’s Cosmos is close to finishing its first month after going live and I wanted to share an update.
1. Imaging Projects. Since the last update, I have processed the imaging data for four projects that I had in the queue. One was collected back on July 4th and 14th (Messier 8), and the other three were collected on the nights of August 2-4. This last session was a wonderful stretch of 3 nights with clear skies, no moon, and no smoke. These projects have been completed and posted on the website. They are also the first ones that I have written up where I have a lot more flexibility in telling the story of those images. They cover more detail than my previous write-ups and include more images and even videos as part of the story. I have also been able to share a lot more details regarding the image processing that was done. I hope you enjoy them!
2. Site Visits. Visits to the website continue to grow, with visitors from almost every state and 30 countries worldwide. Visitors are finding us directly, via social media, and as a result of google searches. I have been spending more time focusing on SEO (Search Engine Optimization), and this seems to be helping.
3. Comments. I have not seen any comments come through the website, so I assumed that this was something that people were not interested in. One kind visitor contacted me to say that the comment system was failing! I dug into it, and I discovered that I did not have things set up correctly, and I was able to correct this yesterday. Now comments are indeed coming in. That's the good news - the bad news is that the "Like" feature for comments is still failing. I contacted Squarespace Technical Support, and they tell me that is the current behavior, and they do not know when Squarespace will correct it. Great. I have generally been pretty happy with Squarespace, but I am not impressed with their commenting system. I am currently considering alternative commenting systems that I can bolt onto the website to provide better support. I would expect that as I provide greater processing detail, questions will arise. Answering those questions and having discussions around this would make the postings more useful to people, so I would like to encourage this.
4. Email Updates. The email sign-up list is still growing. To those who signed up - thank you for doing so! I have to apologize because I have not yet used this feature. Actually, Squarespace has a built-in capability to do email blasts from within their system. I was anticipating using this capability to automatically send out alerts when I had added new content to the site. Unfortunately, I did not realize early on that this is a service that must also be paid for. I did find that I can manually create an email list and use it to send out updates. While it is manual, it does avoid raising the cost of running the site. I will start using this system right away.
5. Future Imaging Projects. Since I have now processed all of the data I have collected to date, the next focus will be on new projects. My ability to do this is driven by the Moon, local weather, and smoke plume drift patterns over the US. As we head into fall, we typically have some of the best times during the year for capture. Cool fall nights can often be very clear. The onset of fall often reduces the fires out west, minimizing the smoke problem. And finally - It starts to get dark earlier now. During July, I had about 4 hours of useful imaging time due to the short nights. In later fall, I can almost triple that! So stay tuned as we progress throughout the year - a lot more imaging Projects will be coming! At the same time, I will be slowly adding new posts to the website around equipment topics and tips and process recommendations. Stay Tuned!
Thanks again for your interest and support! If you have any comments, questions or suggestions, please feel free to contact me!
May your skies be clear,
Pat
