Cosgrove’s Cosmos Celebrates its First-Year Milestone! (Update #8)
July 22, 2022
Hi Folks,
I can't believe it's been a full year since this website first went live!
On that first day, I only had about 30 images loaded into the system, but the design and the framework were in place, and it was time to begin! For the next month, I added more images from my portfolio until they were all posted.
When I started this, I remember telling my wife that I would try it for a year. It was not clear that I would be able to figure out how to create a webpage that anyone would ever look at - I did not know what I was doing! If it just was not working out, I would simply not pay for the next year of hosting!
One year in, and there is no question that I will be continuing work on Cosgrove’s Cosmos! I really enjoy working on it - especially when we are clouded over (which happens a lot!), and I love having the ability to document my projects in ways that I could not when I was trying to use other social media platforms.
A lot of water has passed under the bridge since the website first went live.
Breaking New Ground
For the initial posts, all I was doing was taking the text write-ups I had done for Facebook and Flickr and repurposing them for the website. I did add finder charts and annotated versions of the image to the posts, but for the most part, I reused content I already had.
With new imaging projects being completed, I could tell the story of my image the way I had always envisioned! I was free to add more images and charts as the story needed. I slowly began to feel where I wanted to take things.
I was able to spend more time talking about what the object was, its history, why I choose the target, how I captured the data, and details about the processing of the image.
A real breakthrough came for me when I realized that this newfound power to tell the story could be used to share the nitty-gritty processing details used for a given image! It also allowed me to highlight problems and issues along the way.
When I first started with Astrophotography, I searched for information like this but rarely found it. I now could capture and share that information for my images - and in doing so, I would be one of the only websites out there to do this.
This required that I fundamentally change how I did my processing. I needed to keep a detailed set of processing notes that I could use as a reference for the posting. It also required that I do screen snaps of the image as it was operated on and capture tool panel configurations and the masks used. While this was kind of a pain at first, it is now second nature to me and is just part of how I do my image processing.
All of this extra work makes the story much richer - especially for those trying to learn this art.
The first few just images where I did this only had text descriptions of the processing. But soon, these blossomed into having images, data plots, and even videos inserted to show the processing being done. Now I was really happy with where this was going!
This is now a unique and standard part of all imaging project posts. -I have been very pleased with all of the great comments and feedback I have gotten from readers who appreciate these walk-throughs.
Evolution!
Cosgrove’s Cosmos is a blog that takes place over time. As such, evolution is turning out to be an important concept here. From the first image to the most recent, you can see how things are changing and evolving over time.
You can see:
How my images have changed over time. This represents the growth in my technique of capturing images, my image processing skills, and how my developing “inner eye” drives the look of the final image.
How the web postings for imaging projects have evolved and improved. Over time I have learned to better use the tools Squarespace offers, which allowed me to make my postings richer and more image-centric.
You can see how my image processing workflows and techniques have evolved - this is an area where I am continually learning, and new tools make new processing options possible.
This website can act as a way-back machine, and each project is a snapshot-in-time of my journey as both an astrophotographer and a website content creator!
Re-Affirming the Philosophy of the Site
After a year of operation, I think it might be good to review and re-affirm the key philosophies that drive the site:
This is not, and never will be, about money.
I'm not selling anything. This is a passion project, and that's all it is. At some point, I will likely do something to cover my hosting costs, but never to generate revenue.
Don't pretend to be an expert
I am learning just like everybody else!
Just share what I did and how I did it
Share what seems to work for me
Be transparent.
Share both the Good and the Bad.
Unlike many websites, I share all of my results - good and bad. The good results are fun to share, but the bad ones also need to be there. Not all projects come out perfectly. Everybody runs into issues and problems. Sharing these also provides a good opportunity for learning something and also reassures others who are just beginning that it is OK - even normal to have things go wrong at times.
Tell the broader story behind each project
Too many sites just show the images. I want to share more.
What are you looking at?
What is its history?
Where can it be found in the sky?
What else is in the same neighborhood?
Why did I choose this particular target?
Where can you find out more about this target?
How did I go about data collection?
What gear was used?
What subs and cal frames were captured?
How did I process the image?
What do I think of the results?
Share the processing done for each project - in detail!
Share not just in vague terms, but step-by-step and show interim images, tool panel parameters setups, masks used, etc.
I think this philosophy is a comfortable one for me - and it has served me well.
Not everyone will agree with my approach, processing decisions, or even the final look for the image I ended up with. And that's OK. In fact - that’s to be expected!
One of the very cool things about Astrophotography is that 10 Astrophotographers can start with the same data set and end up with 10 very different final images that all look great in their unique way!
Some of these differences are in how the image was processed. Some are due to the inner eye that each astrophotographer develops as they grow - it drives their interpretation of the data and how they like their images to look.
But even if you do not agree with how I did a project, I hope by sharing the details of my effort, I might stimulate your thinking on how you might do something different in the future.
Or - if you are just beginning - perhaps my examples will help you to make progress on your journey.
A Year of Growth!
I started without a clue as to what I was doing, and dipped my toe into the waters of web design!
As of today:
I have Posted 106 imaging projects - representing 468.3 hours of integration time
I have posted 38 gear or technical articles
I am the only website that shares a complete and detailed image processing walk-through for each project
In the first few months, the website had 10s of people visiting - I think mostly friends and family. If you did an internet search, Cosgrove's Cosmos would show up about 50 pages in the search results!
But slowly, over time, things have changed.
In the past year, I have had over tens of thousands of visitors from 122 countries worldwide. Now these number may not seem like a lot compared to some main stream websites, but it's more than I ever expected, given this is such a niche esoteric topic!
We have had visitors from All 50 states in the US. For a long time, I only had 48, but finally, we have had visits now from each state!
Where are users coming from? All over!
Most come to the website via:
Direct URL entry
Via Organic search
or Social media, following links from:
Facebook
Twitter
Flickr
Instagram
Astrobin
It has been gratifying to see the traffic grow month after month!
I was also surprised to see how often Cosgroves Cosmos pops up on the front page of search results for a broad number of searches for related terms.
It’s been a very fun year watching this all evolve!
Other Updates
Recently Published Image Projects
Since the last update, the following imaging projects have been published:
Recently Published Technical Articles
The following Technical Articles have been published since the last Update:
Future plans
So what lies in the future for Cosgrove's Cosmos?
I will continue to pursue imaging projects and share them as I have been.
Videos
I am also considering adding more video content into the mix.
I am planning on doing this very cautiously.
No - I am not planning on putting a lot of content on a youtube channel - I don't think I have much screen presence for that kind of thing. But I am considering some short videos on processing, tech tips, and the like. Perhaps an intro video for each new imaging project. We will see….
A test Metal Print I recently made of my image of M16!
Print Fulfillment
I have been getting increased requests from individuals who would like to purchase prints of my images. In some cases, I have supported this - but frankly, it is too much work for me.
However - since I am on Squarespace - they do make it possible to add a "storefront" where certain prints of some images could be ordered.
These are fulfilled by a print house partner that handles all fulfillment orders and ships them directly to the buyer.
The vender they work with is Printique, which is a professional printing service run by Adorama. I have ordered some test prints and have been very impressed with their quality, packaging and shipping practices, and customer service.
To be clear, I would offer this for only a few reasons:
It would automate print requests I have been getting and take me out of the loop
It would provide a way to make a small amount of revenue that I can apply to the hosting costs for this website.
Again - I am not trying to make money here. If you are interested - Great! If you are not. That's great too. If I sell 3 prints and that makes 3 people happy - wonderful. If I make $15 to apply to running costs -even better!
I would be working on adding this capability this next winter, as a cloudy season project.
I will, of course, be working on more technical and How-To articles - again - mostly during the cloudy season. During times of clear skies, I will be too busy with imaging projects to do anything else!
Donation Button?
I have been contacted by several people wanting to know if I had a donation button, as they found the site so helpful that they personally wanted to support it! I was very grateful for their willingness to do this. It would be very easy for me to create a donation button and put it on the footer of each page. This is supported by Squarespace, and people could then make gifts using Paypal.
While this would provide some welcome funds to help offset the cost of hosting - and I appreciate that people have already offered to contribute - I am not sure I want to do this. It feels a little like begging, and it sort of suggests that the reason I created the website was to somehow capitalize on it.
So I am not sure I will go down this path.
What are your thoughts on this?
Observatory
I shared a while back my desire to buy some land that would be suitable to build a house - and more importantly - my own observatory. While I am having fun shooting from my driveway, it would be soooo much nicer if I had an observatory to leave my gear set up in - and even nicer to have a view of the sky that is clear of dreaded tree lines!
At this point - there is not much news to share on that front. For the past 8 months, my wife and I have been trying to find land to buy that would meet our needs.
It's been a very tough real estate market, and build costs have gone through the roof, but we are still hopeful that we will find something. But so far, we have not found what we are looking for.
In the meantime, I have engaged an architect to develop stamp engineering plans for the observatory.
My sincere hope is that we eventually find something. Once we do, I will be blogging on the construction of the observatory, the project to automate its operation, and of course, the results from its use on this website.
Suggestions?
As always - I am very interested in your feedback on my images and on this website, as well as your suggestion on how to make the site more interesting and useful to you! Please don’t hesitate to contact me and share your suggestions and feedback!
Thanks again for your interest and support over the past year!
If you have any comments, questions or suggestions, please contact me!
May your skies be clear!
Pat
SH2-73 was originally cataloged as an emission nebula. This was a mistake - it is actually a reflection nebula, illuminated by the light of the entire Milky Way Galaxy! This makes it an Integrated Flux Nebula, or IFN.
have tried and failed to capture IFN in the past so here is another effort. Just shy of 10 hours of integration - long for me with my tree situation, but still way too short for IFN. I have finally gotten an image of an IFN - even if it is not a very good one!