June 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.
📜 UpdatedTerms of Service
AstroBin's Terms of Service were updated with the following addition in the
CONTENT SUBMITTED TO THE SERVICE section. The following types of images can be submitted to the service:
Images relevant to astrophotography (i.e. either the main subject is a celestial object, or a celestial object is prominently pictured, or it's an image of astrophotography equipment).
Images that the submitter has personally worked on, regardless of the source of the data (e.g. the submitter acquired the data, or the submitter post-processed data coming from a third-party and they have permission to post).
Here's some examples of things that are not allowed:
Reposting other's people work without modifications (this include NASA/ESA
images).
Reposting other's people work with modifications but no permission from the owner of the data (this obviously depends also on the license of the source data).
Posting artistic renders of made-up galaxies/nebulae/planets etc (this include AI generated content).
Posting terrestrial photography that has nothing to with astrophotography.
Here's some examples of things that are allowed:
Posting astrophotography whose data the submitter owns, or has permission to post-process and share. The post-processing technique is irrelevant, as long as the subject of the image remains recognizable as a real celestial object. The following things are allowed:
Blurring parts of the image to achieve a 3D effect. Using non-standard / non-canonical color palettes.
Using whatever algorithm the submitter like, be it AI-powered or not, to enhance the image. Whether the result is scientifically accurate or not is not relevant for this service.
Drawings / sketches / paintings / any work of art on any medium, so long as the depicted object is a real celestial object.
The service provider reserves the right to change any rules at any time, in case rule- abuse becomes a problem. The service provider also reserves the rights to make exceptions on a case-to-case basis.
💨 Even more speed!
After last month's infrastructure upgrades, this month I spent an entire week focusing on performance: I optimized several critical database queries, I employed a few caching tricks, and I added prefetching to a few common page paths.
The result is that in June AstroBin's average server response time was 17% faster than in May! 🎉
Additionally, the image uploader has been improved for those of you with faster network connections, and upload speeds are now capped at 2 MB per chunk instead of 1 MB, which means faster uploads if your network allows.
🌌 Ability to specify what user groups can see your images at full-size
You can now specify whether or not you want others to be able to see your image at its full size.
This came in as a request from a user who intends to sell their work, and would prefer it if non-members weren't able to download the full-size image.
The default value, "Everybody", allows everybody to view the full-size, same as before.
You can find this setting on Step 5 of the upload process, or in "Edit ➡ Basic information" for older images.
👷♂ Work in progress on the new equipment database
Work on the new equipment database and module, which is going to be the highlight of 2021, is ongoing. I'm working on the new data models and API, and a tool to allow volunteers to merge legacy equipment items into a new highly curated database.
This is going to be a massive improvement, when it all comes together, due to several factors:
A comprehensive and polished equipment database, free of duplicates and incomplete elements
A better user experience when attaching equipment items to your imeages
A better search, with no equipment fragmentation, and more tools to filter by technical properties
A better way to connect people who own the same equipment, due to dedicated pages for each item, with dedicated forums and image galleries
Just to manage expectations correctly, please know that it will take several months until we see this fruit to the final awesome vision, and at some point I will ask for help from volunteers to assist in building the new data.
🏆 Slight change in the IOTD/TP process
The time that images sit in the IOTD Submission queue has grown from 24 to 48 hours, as it's been requested by the IOTD Submission team. This means that the minimum time that can elapse from image publication to Top Pick Nomination is now 48 hours. This was done to allow yesterday's images to be selected to move forward in the process in case "yesterday" saw many candidate images, while "today" didn't see enough.
The whole IOTD/TP process is detailed on the following page, I invite everyone to read it:
📺 I will present at TAIC (The Astro Imaging Channel) on YouTube!
On July 11th, at 6:30 PM Pacific Time, I will be a live guest of The Astro Imaging Channel on YouTube.
I will talk for an hour or so about some of AstroBin's "behind the scenes". This will include some personal information about me, for the curious, some tidbits about AstroBin's history, some of the challenging aspects of running this project, an overview of the way I work and what my typical week looks like, some technical information about AstroBin as a platform, and some spoilers about the main ideas and the vision for AstroBin's future.
Most importantly, I would love a lively Q&A session, so I invite everyone to prepare some questions about AstroBin that you are curious about. You will be able to ask them live (probably using the chat box on YouTube, if not by literally voicing them).
Please have a look at the TAIC calendar so you can add the event to your own calendar. For your convenience, these are a few time zones in which the event will take place:
🇺🇸 US Pacific: July 11th, 6:30 PM
🇺🇸 US Mountain: July 11th, 7:30 PM 🇺🇸 US Central: July 11th, 8:30 PM
🇺🇸 US Eastern: July 11th, 9:30 PM
🇧🇷 Rio de Janeiro, July 11th, 10:30 PM 🕰 UTC: July 12th, 1:30 AM
🇬🇧 London: July 12th, 2:30 AM
🇩🇪 Berlin: July 12th, 3:30 AM
🇷🇺 Moscow: July 12th, 4:30 AM
🇨🇳 Beijing: July 12th, 9:30 AM
🇯🇵 Tokyo: July 12th, 10:30 AM
🇦🇺 Sydney: July 12th, 11:30 AM
Looking forward to seeing you there!