Cosgrove’s Cosmos Update #7
April 15, 2022
The Cosgrove's Cosmos Spring Update!
Hi Folks,
As the cold, snowy Winter finally is giving way to a long-sought Spring, it’s time for another update on what is happening with Cosgrove's Cosmos!
We have had a fairly harsh winter compared with previous years - but one thing that has not changed is the typical cloudy skies during this season - no opportunity for photon capture! To pass the time, I have been focusing on writing some technical articles that I have wanted to get to for some time- it feels good to make progress on this front!
But as we roll into Spring, some clear skies have finally opened up - in a very limited way - and I was able to complete the first image projects of the season!
So let's jump into it!
Sky & Telescope Magazine Published One of My Images!
I just found out today that the Sky and Telescope Magazine published one of my images! My image of SH2-170 - The Little Rosette Nebula - can be seen in the Gallery section of the June 2022 issue on page 78!
The full story of this image can be seen HERE.
A shot from the magazine! (taken by Gary Opitz - used with permission)
Here is the original image of SH2-170!
Recent Additions Menu Item
I just wanted to remind folks that you can track all of the changes and additions to the website on the “Recent Additions” page. Each time I post a new image or article or make significant changes to an existing webpage, I add an entry to this page. Each change is listed in chronological order and has links to the article in question. This is a pretty handy way to see what's new!
New Imaging Projects
With the limited window of clear skies that we have had so far, I still completed two image projects. These are two targets that I have wanted to get for a while now - but they are a bit challenging for me. They are only really accessible this time of year, and they are located very low in my skies - tucked between two rows of trees on my property. Though their integrations are disappointingly short, I was able to still get reasonable results with some careful processing:
Recent Tip and Technique Articles
I have a long list of technical articles that I would like to write, and I am happy to say that I attacked a few more of them recently, dealing with the use of Deconvolution. What started out as a single posting grew VERY long, and I broke it into a series of seven posts covering different aspects of deconvolution. This was my most ambitious effort to date. I followed this up with an article on the use of EZ-Deconvolution.
Still planned is an article on using the regularization parameters for deconvolution, and then I am thinking of a series on noise reduction since I have had to lean on this so much given my relatively short integrations. So stay tuned!
New Gear Post
I recently wrote my first article on cable management. I had a lot of good feedback on this, as well as some great suggestions for doing things even better. In fact, I am contemplating a follow-up posting that builds on this.
The Observatory Project
I have also added a brand new section to the website to deal with my efforts to buy land and build my own observatory. The first article dealing with the goals of this effort has been posted, and more will be coming as I make progress. Right now, I am still in the search process for the land. Hopefully, we can find something yet this year and the project can take off!
Web Site Traffic Sources
I am glad to say that visits to the website continue to grow. At this point, I have had visits from 108 countries worldwide. In the United States, I now have had visits from 49 states - the only holdouts being South Dakota!
Traffic sources break down as follows:
Direct page entry 49.5%
Social Media click-throughs 23.9%
Search 16.6%
Referrals. 9.9%
It's nice to see that more people find the website through search results or directly going to the URL. About 24% of the traffic is brought in through click-throughs on social media. This breakdown can be seen below:
Facebook is driving a lot of this traffic - about 76% of all social media click-throughs!
Many active astrophotography groups can be found on Facebook, and posts there generate considerable traffic.
The number of followers on Twitter has been growing. It is now at 1146 and growing. Retweets give me greater reach.
About 21% of social media click-throughs as coming from Twitter. I must say that I have found a very active #astrophotography community there that I enjoy engaging in.
The rest are spread across LinkedIn, Reddit, and Instagram - but this only accounts for 3% of social media click-throughs. Below are a few more comments on these sources.
I have been leveraging my professional contacts- this is not done to generate more website traffic - this is more to let my professional network know what I am up to since I retired.
I created an account for Cosgroves-Cosmos on Reddit, thinking this was a great place to promote the website. However, I have sort of given up on this. The combination of bots rejecting postings for one reason or another has been very frustrating, and many groups on Reddit frown about postings with links that pull people away from Reddit - they see this as PROMOTION - which, of course, is what it is! It would seem my goals are not compatible with the Reddit communities. I don't expect t be doing much with Reddit in the future.
As a general photo enthusiast, I have been on Flickr for a long time. I post all of my images there, and while I get very few click-throughs from Flikr, I get a lot of support, and I had the honor of having 13 of my images granted “Explore” Status. This generates a lot of views and likes, but sadly - few click-throughs.
Another new initiative - I have created a new Instagram account for Cosgroves-Cosmos to help promote new posts there. While I have generated a lot of interest, and my number of followers is building daily, I am finding that Instagram followers do not tend to click through! With thousands of likes, I have only had about five click-throughs! Despite this, I will continue to post new images on Instagram as I create them.
Referrals seem to be coming from Astrobin, which is nice to see as it appears to be a wonderful Astrophtograraphy community.
Email Subscriptions
While I collect emails addresses on my webpage for creating an email list, I have not been using this list much. I did not have that many people signing up, and it turns out that email campaigns in Squarespace have their costs. However, I have reconsidered this. The number of folks signing up with their emails has grown, and I have decided to pay for a limited email campaign capability. I will start this right away, so don't be surprised if you see emails coming your way!
My email sign-up section. This will now be generating notices on a more regular basis.
Comments
I have been very glad to see that more and more people are leaving comments on my posts. I try to respond to each one, and I would like to encourage folks to leave even more. Your input here often raises interesting points or allows me to expand on issues covered in the post.
Considering the Future
I enjoy astrophotography and find it to be very fulfilling. I have also really enjoyed creating Cosgrove's Cosmos Website. I appreciate the response I have gotten to it and value the opportunity to engage with the broader community.
I will, of course, continue sharing my imaging projects and technical articles, and I am considering ways that I could enhance the website and make it more useful and valuable to folks.
With that in mind, I would like to ask the open question: "What can I do to make Cosgrove's Cosmos interesting and useful to you? " I would love to hear from you and get your input!
Dealing with Costs
Website hosting has costs associated with it and the meter is running! While I am willing to underwrite a lot of this, it would be nice to find some simple ways to offset some of the costs.
Creating a website does involve some costs. Cost of hosting, maintaining domain names, email campaign costs, and yearly costs for some of the tools used to create postings.
Let me stress one point: I have NO desire to make a profit from this website. That was never a goal, nor will it ever be. That is not what this is about.
But I would like to find a way to help defray operating costs. There are several potential options I could consider:
Add a print store: This would allow users to order prints of my images. I have had many requests on this front, and this would allow an easy way for people to order what they would like. Squarespace makes this easy to add to a website. I will be sending some test print requests to their service provider, and if the quality that comes back meets my expectations, I could add this capacity with relative ease. The very modest proceeds from this could help cover website costs.
Incorporate Google Ads: Allow some ads to post on the website. I'm not crazy about this, as it does change the site's aesthetics. While I am no designer, I am happy with the looks I have achieved, and I think these ads are tacky and obtrusive.
Allow for Affiliate Links for equipment and software. In this case, I could add a link to the equipment covered in a post that would take you to a specific website where you could purchase the equipment being discussed. If you follow this and make such a purchase, a minimal amount will come back to me.
Add a "donate" button, which would allow readers to donate a small amount, should they feel so compelled, through PayPal or Patreon.
What do you think would be reasonable? I would very much be interested in your thoughts here.
Thanks again for your interest and support! If you have any comments, questions or suggestions, please contact me!
May your skies be clear!
Pat
IC 2177, better known as the Seagull Nebula, is a rich HII emission region located 3650 light-years away located new the borders of the constellations Canis Magor and Monoceros.
This image results from slightly over 2 hours of narrowband integration on my 400mm wide field scope. This short integration time results from bad weather and sky access limitations due to trees on my property.
Careful processing was able to produce a reasonable image despite the lack of integration time.