May 2021 update
Before I kick-off with what what is new on AstroBin this May, I want to mention one last time, for those who missed it, that this is a very special time for me (and, by extension, for us all).
Thanks to AstroBin's growth in 2020, and the trust of so many of you who bought the Ultimate membership tier, starting from May 2021, after ten and a half years of working on AstroBin on the side, I was finally able focus on AstroBin full-time!
This is great news not only for me, as it's the coronation of a dream I have chased for 10 years, but for everybody: I have a lot of interesting things in the pipeline, and from now, AstroBin will continue improving at an accelerated pace!
Thank you so much again for your support!
Salvatore
New search filters layout
AstroBin's search page, which is one of the most visited pages on the website, got an overhaul as I did a few improvements to the search UI and engine.
I reorganized the search filters as a sidebar: this consolidates them nicely because they all have the same width, and prevents weird issues when you click on a dropdown and suddenly the filter box moves to a new row...
I Added three new filters: Subject (for catalogued deep-sky objects), Telescope, and Camera (both for the imaging and not the guiding optical train). This allows you to search more intuitively for images acquired with a certain telescope and a certain camera, without needing to cram them in the free-text search, which also finds guiding cameras, telescopes, text in the description body... PS: you can still search by free-text if you want, in the Search terms filter, as before.
I rebuilt the search index, syncing it to the database anew. It had drifted off at some point leaving lots and lots of dangling objects, and that's why you often saw images that would not load a thumbnail in the search results, or images that were not clickable.
I made it possible to reliably perform exact searches using quotation marks!
I improved the look and usability of the slider filters (e.g. moon phase percentage, field of view in degrees, coordinates...) so you can more accurately search using decimal numbers.
I fixed an issue with the Award filter, and now you can search for IOTD or Top-Pick or Top Pick Nomination (before it was an AND instead of an OR, making the fact that it's a multi-select box useless).
I made the Add filter box sorted alphabetically and searchable, so it's much easier to find the filter you want.
There's a new filter too: Bortle scale, so you can find images within a specific Bortle range!
Wider image layour on wide screens
If you enjoy a large screen and your browser's window is 1200 pixels or more, images will now appear full width to you, so you can enjoy them with additional details even without clicking thru for the larger view. Please note that you will see this layout only if your browser's window is also tall enough that the whole image will fit.
Forum polls
You can now include a poll when you create a new forum topic. Answers can be single or multiple selection. Care to share your opinion in some forum topics with polls that were recently opened?
Color vs mono
What is your seeing and how do you measure it?
Decision Making Help - Flattener f/7 or Flattener/Reducer f/5.6
OAG vs guide scope???
NP127is or SVX130t
Added locations to the image data editor form
You all noticed that recently I changed the imaga data editor after the upload, to have a new fast form with steps. This was an important technical prerequisite to what's coming next: a much improved equipment input experience (more details below). The last step I needed before moving on to the equipment was the location data. You can now input and also create new locations directly from that form, without needing to use the profile settings form.
New notification settings page
The notification settings page was really due for an overhaul: the settings were all mixed up without categorization, and there were several obsolete settings for notifications that don't exist anymore. I also ported the page to the new frontend framework that is the key to AstroBin's performance plans I have for the future.
Additionally, I added notifications for when your image is selected to be a Top Pick Nomination, a Top Pick, or an Image of the Day!
Removed need to login twice every 6 months
Due to AstroBin currently operating on two different domains (www.astrobin.com, the classic one, and app.astrobin.com, the new one) since about a year ago, when I started a long technological migration and modernization process, up until last month you would need to login twice every six months.
I did some cookie magic and I removed this limitation, so now a single login is valid for both platforms.
More speed
I built AstroBin's docker images for the ARM64 architecture, which allows me to leverage the AWS Graviton 2 instances, both faster and cheaper than the equivalent x86_64 instannces. Additionally, I improved the network configuration by adding an AWS Global Accelerator in front of the application load balancer. Finally, I was also able to simplify AstroBin's configuration by removing the custom nginx image: one less hoop to go thru!
I hope you noticed!
What’s coming up next
I have been waiting for this for a long time, but it's finally here. On June 1st, come what may, I will begin actual coding work for the new AstroBin's Certified Database of Equipment (please indulge me, this probably not the actual final name, but I love the ABCDE acronym 😂).
Everything is already planned, in my head and on the back of a bunch of envelops all over my desk. The first step will be a tool that will allow a task force of volunteers to migrate the current items to the new database, merging duplicates and fixing mispelled items.
There will be a lot of manual work involved, I'm afraid, but I'm sure I can count on the community to step up and use our collective energy to distribute the work so that each volunteer will onlly have to do a small part. Unfortunately, this work cannot really be automated, because we cannot rely on string similarity to detect duplicates.
The key will be in the tool that I will write to achieve this, and it will be very important that it's done well, to pretty please don't send me any feature requests for the next couple of months, okay? 🤗
The new equipment database will allow massively useful improvements to AstroBin:
Removal of duplicate items with multiple spellings, which will allow for larger search result sets.
Inclusion of more (and accurate) equipment data, such as telescope diameter, focal length, or camera details such as pixel size, chip type, cooling capabilities, nominal noise values, and so on.
Such accurate data will be searchable via new filters in the search engine.
To ensure the accuracy of the data, it will work like a wiki system, and changes will require peer reviews.
Every equipment item will have its own page on AstroBin, with official product pictures, images taken thru that item by the community, a dedicated forum that will notify all owners/users of that particular item when there is a new topic, product reviews, and so on. The secondary goal if this effort is to allow communities to form around equipment items, to connect people who own the same items, and people who are interested in purchasing them.
AstroBin is used by many of you not only as a website to share your work and network with fellow astrophotographers, but as a research tool to validate your next purchase. This is, infact, one of the primary ways that you use AstroBin, and for this reason this is an aspect of the website that needs to be strengthened.
When I will be ready with the migration tool, I will send out invitations to volunteer.