February 2021 update
February has been another month of intense work on AstroBin, continuing on the 2020 trend that saw an average of 7 software changes per day.
In this short message, I'd like to quickly recap what's new.
Planning of the new Equipment database
We can all agree that one of the biggest advantages of using AstroBin is the ability to peek at the equipment used to acquire images. Experienced astrophotographers and newbies alike use AstroBin daily to browse images by equipment, to figure out what telescope or camera they'd like to buy next, if they are in the mood for an upgrade.
Since the current database is maintained by the community, and AstroBin hasn't been strict enough with the process, there are many duplicates (e.g. the same item under different spellings).
I would like to consolidate this database to remove duplicates, and also add more details to the items.
The ultimate goal is to extend the search capabilities to include all sorts of technical details, to provide advanced image filtering by equipment properties.
Some examples:
Filter by pixel size of the CCD
Filter by CCD chip (e.g. KAF-8300)
Filter by modded/unmodded DSLR
The work for this task, which is planned to be the focus of AstroBin's strategy for the first half of 2021, has started. There are many prerequisites and phases involved, and it's going to be a lot of hard work, but it will be worth it!
Infratructure improvements
In order to improve stability and speed, some more infrastructure tweaks were performed in February. AstroBin's server infrastructure comprises of multiple components:
The server with the main app (which can scale horizontally according to the load)
The database server (one fixed writer, and one reader that can scale horizontally according to the load)
The search database server
The cache server (for performance)
The workser server for asynchronous jobs (generating thumbnails, updating the search database, sending emails, etc), which can scale horizontally according to the load
The periodic tasks scheduler server
The asynchronous messages queue server to dispatch worker jobs
AstroBin's architecture is also comprised by several other components (file hosting, content delivery network, logging, build and deployment infrastructure...) but the ones listed above are the servers that run the website.
In February, I changed the configuration of the main app server from "1 big server by default, scale up if necessary" to "2 smaller servers by default, scale up if necessary". This added redundancy means that if one of them goes down for whatever reason, the other one will handle the requests, and AstroBin will be a bit slower for 3 minutes while the server that went down is replaced automatically.
This changed resulted in a measurable performance boost of +20.5%!
"Like" button on full size view
Sometimes it's the small things that make all the difference! I was recently bothered by the fact that I often found myself first clicking the Like button, and then inspecting the image in full resolution. Then it occurred to me that adding a Like button the full size view would be very natural, so I did!
Chinese localization and AliPay are coming!
AstroBin's translation to the Chinese language is now almost complete, as is the support for the Alipay payment method. In March, AstroBin visitors who prefer Chinese will be able to switch language, and, if they want, to use Alipay to purchase a subscription, instead of a credit card.