Website thoughts and ideas...

[Rick]

If you've got ideas about ways we could update the OAS website, please tell us about them.

[JohnP]

Hi Rick,

I've always found submitting images to the Gallery a complicated & long procedure (which is why I don't do many) - Is there anyway members could submit images themselves....? I participate in some photograph forums & you can do this - it would also save you a lot of work.

Also layout of Gallery is a bit confusing - Not quite sure why there is a gallery & a gallery archive - It makes it tricky looking for the new images.. for example Latest additions are in the Gallery Archive - wouldn't it better to have a direct link to the latest images.....

Can you improve the security of the Forum - i.e. make it members only - again many of the forums I participate in do this & it only normally takes an hour or two to register...

Cheers,  John

[Mike]

I agree with all of John's comments. I would also like to see a "search" function for gallery images. I was trying to find an old image myself the other day and it took ages to find it.

[Tony G]

Hi all

maybe a small classified section where members can advertise equipment they are selling or items required that other can point them in the right direction so they can purchase it.

Tony G

[Rick]

The gallery in two places issue is one a bigger server is intended to solve. The whole gallery is way too big to fit on my ISP's homepages server, so I put the archive on my own machine at home. I occasionally shuffle the images about a bit so that new ones get onto the main site, but must confess I've not been keeping up with this so well. However I didn't want to cut out the small bit of gallery on the main site altogether, because the link to my home system is not high-capacity or high-availability.

Is it really too complicated to ask people to put an image in an email and include a little information about it? I wouldn't see a problem with established gallery contributors having their own IDs to allow them to add images to the gallery, but I would expect new contributors to use a system at least a bit like the one we currently use for their first few images, and I'd expect there to be some editorial control over what goes in and how it is displayed.

What benefits do you see in having the forum available to members only? What problems does having it open cause?

[Whitters]

Having an open forum is a great benefit to the society, many people have sited the forum and the web site as reasons for finding and joining the society. I think that we should have some areas restricted but the majority of the forum should be open.

[Mike]

I agree.

[JohnP]

My thoughts regarding the security issue was that it would stop the ocassional spammers which I know the OAS site has had trouble with recently.. I know that this isn't a major problem but it may get worse if/ when you goto an external server. And secondly if you have to sign into the forum then you are already secure for uploading images etc. to the gallery (re: my original request about being able to submit images yourself). I would still argue that the current email method is too cumbersome & discourages people from submitting - also you have to wait for it to be posted until who ever is reponsible gets around to updating the page....

John

[Rick]

Earlier this week I turned on the option to make robotic registrations trickier, and for the moment that seems to have helped cut down the spammer activity.

Yep, it does take a while for me to sort out each gallery image; edit the description, pick a template, make a thumbnail, put it in the appropriate indices, and re-build the pages. A gallery package would do most of that easily enough, once configured.

I've always expected that members would have their own webspace for the bulk of their images, and that the OAS gallery would be a place for showing off a selection. I've never seen the website gallery as the primary place for members to host all their images. If it's likely to become a primary hosting place for all members images then we'll need to revise our expected space and bandrequirement upwards quite a bit...

[Mike]

Powweb provide 20Gb of space. I would have thought that would be plenty.

[Rick]

Yes, that sort of figure is fairly typical for US-based hosting companies. The catch is likely to be the bandwidth, though finding US-based companies offering 1Tb or more per month isn't that hard.

However, do we want the OAS to be provding its members' primary astro-image hosting facility, or is it reasonable to expect at least the more prolific imaging folk to have their own webspace for the bulk of their images? (Obviously folk who only have a few astro-images may well not want the trouble of their own webspace, and it's not unreasonable for the OAS to be hosting them all...)

(...and should we move this conversation into "Behind the Scenes"?)

[Fay]

How about "Image of the Month" for members only?


PS Obviously I will not be participating in this for about 5 years!!!
Fay

[JohnP]

Isn't latest post by ... Sutherland a classic example of why security should be improved....?

[Mike]

Yup

[Rocket Pooch]

Hi Folks,

To be completely honest I have not read through everything here, but it seems like the spammers problem still exists, oh well.  

In my offiic we run a portal product called DotNetNuke, it comes with several modules for forum's images news XML feeds etc etc.  We do not have a spammer problem because I have to authorise access before anyone can make a posting, unlike this site where you can post without getting approved.

The purpose of these free portal products is to build communities. I personally beleieve this is where we need to extend the site.  With our site any old monkey can update it given the right permissions and its really easy to add pages and features with little on no technical experiance.  So for example if we wanted to create a new Gallery, you just add the page and add the data, simple.

The only problem with what I use compaired to what the OAS guys are familure with is its .Net, but there are similar PHP versions.

See http://dotnetnuke.com/ this is built using the system,

Here is another example, I don't like the skin but its relevant
http://www.starryhost.com/

These sites are simple to setup, free, all we will need is a skin for it (Greg) and we can tailor it to our needs.  I can't help much with a PHP versions, but if we we're considering a .Net version then I do have people who could do the initial design if needed.

Chris

[Rick]

Yes, there are ways spammers can get posts and profiles into the forum, but for profiles they have to work fairly hard, and for posts the down-side of closing the route they use is that genuine folks who're having difficulty getting stuff into the forum will have no way to indicate what the problem is.

We're working on finding suitable content management systems for the website and gallery, but I'd ruled .Net out because it severely limits other aspects (particularly for cheap hosting), and because I have no experience with it.

[JohnP]

Rick,

As long as you agree there is a problem with spamming you/OAS should be doing everything possible to stop it.. I really do not see what the problem is with having a 'membership only' forum.. If anybody is interested in the OAS/ the messages etc. that members post then I'm sure that they would have no problems in joining if they want to participate. I also really don't see a problem with a membership procedure that takes for example 24hrs for approval...  (just so spammers etc. are excluded)

John.

[Mike]

I think that being able to access and post on the forum without delay is a good idea personally. However, some kind of system to stop the spammers is essential. The usual one is the one where it shows a word or group of characters that are distorted and you have to type the word in. Virtually impossible for any kind of spam-bot to get past those !

I also think we shouldn't restrict what we use just because one of us doesn't know hwo to use it. The whole idea of expanding the site and getting our own server is so that several people can be the editors. If Chris is offering to help with any kind of .NET software and willing to train others then I don't see why we shouldn't go down that route if it offers a good solution.

[Rocket Pooch]

Hi,

Did you know by the way you can host dot net nuke sites for approx £60 per annum?  How much disk space would we need.

Chris

[Rick]

The level of spamming on this forum is, in my opinion, tolerable at present. The level of spam registrations dropped dramatically when we turned on the extra confirmation step. I'll happily add an extra moderator (or maybe two) to the public forums if we need more folks able to delete spam posts.

[Rick]

I'd like to keep this thread focused on content, and general ideas about function, and avoid discussion of particular implementations, please.

[Rocket Pooch]

Hi Guys,

Here's my 2 pennies worth.

What I would like to suggest is a flexible CMS system which will allow us to show and external site with some control over the moderators and also the level of access to the site.  For example it should have: -

Open Web Front end where meetings etc can be maintained easily by any authorised member.

A Member only front end set by permissions in the database; this would be for things like behind the scene, contact info for members and maybe special forums and postings etc.

Sections for specialist groups or sub groups, like the committee for the postings relating to committee meetings etc, this could be read only for members and not visible for the public.

The public front end we could have: -

Meeting
Observing details
Special Events
Membership
Gallery subset
Photo of the month
Usual other tabs


The we could have for the members: -

TOAST on-line
Full Gallery where members can load up and maintain their images in directories, and it should be as unlimited as we can, personal interest here.
A private discussion board for things like getting our own observatory, or maybe the web site.
Tutorials
Work in progress collaboration, like building tutorials or even documents for publication.
Observing logs on-line
Etc
Equipment reviews

Whatever system we implement we should be able to add remove or change the permissions or security of any tab or layout without the need to engage a web designer.

Also I would like to see the ability to have XML feeds such as space weather or metcheck in the site and even links to web cams and live events.

Lastly we could video the member's evenings and put them up on the site for non-members to view, I would not have a problem with that.

Simply put a full Astronomy forum, I really would like this to be good, we have to remember that as the demographics of the UK change people will use the web more and more and it's likely that if we have a good site which is maintained and its up to date then people will find us easier and attend and even join.

I do not subscribe to the keep it dull and simple with the bare minimum of resolution and facilities school of thought.  The fact of life at the moment is that people are used to technology, its here to stay as we should keep up with it, although probably two steps back.  Not everyone has 19" monitors with 1480x1024 resolution, but 1024x768 would be good because nearly everyone has that as a minimum these days, and there's always scroll bars.

Please remember if we're going to get kids and other adults interested in OAS and also members of the public we have to get ourselves more attractive, this obviously includes the web site, but it should also include other things like the speakers, equipment etc.  We should also try to get funding if we can for some form of observatory, it does not have to be a eyeball one, CCD would be nice, especially because we're in a light polluted area.....

Gosh I'm nearly on my high horse now.  Anyway it's a start I suppose.

[Fay]

Wow, Chris, a lot of really great ideas!

[Tony G]

What a coincidence Chris,
I seen this post earlier and was half way through typing exactly what you typed, but you must type a lot quicker than me, anyway well constructed message Chris, well done.

Tony G

[Rick]

Thanks Chris, that's a useful list.

[Fay]

Chris's post reminded me of Henry V's call to arms at Agincourt!!!!!!

Fay

[Rick]

Ok, a couple of points just to stir up some discussion:

A reasonable Content Management System will cover the business of allowing section leaders to edit the appropriate bits of the website, and should also allow for members-only (or registered users) sections, if we really want them. Getting more people to contribute content is the most important part of the project.

The second most important part of the project is to get the gallery all into one place with good connectivity and bandwidth. I see no reason for having only a subset of the gallery available to the public. If an image shouldn't be seen by the public then it shouldn't be in the Society's gallery.

The kids pages bring a lot of visitors to the site, and they deserve rather more attention (in the way of updates) than they get.

The main content of the website (excluding the full-size gallery images) should all be viewable without needing to use horizontal scrolling. I think we can reasonably assume that everyone will be able to see something 800 pixels wide without needing horizontal scrolling. The exception I'd make would be full-size images in the gallery. (In case it isn't obvious, I, personally, hate websites which demand I use horizontal scrolling (or a specific resolution, or a particular browser, or a plugin </rant>) in order to read the content.)

I'd expect this forum to be incorporated into (and integrated with) the new site. It already has a section ("Behind the Scenes") specifically for OAS members only.

I think the forum is the right place for things like equipment reviews, For Sale and Wanted adds, and collaboration efforts.

I've got mixed views on observation reports. First and foremost, properly recorded observations should be sent to the appropriate National and/or International organisations. Less formal observing reports could easily be posted in this forum. Somewhere in between, there may be scope for an Observing Reports section like the Meeting Reports and Event Reports sections.

We're looking at putting TOAST on-line, but the printed copy does sometimes contain information which folks do not want to see on the Net, so it's not as simple as just preparing a PDF and posting it...

Ok. Enough from me. Discuss, please.

[Rocket Pooch]

Hi Rick,

Good reply 

Anyway I still can't see what the issue is with not going for 1024x768 as a standard, but hey why not put it to the vote.  Is anyone reading this got a 800x600 screen anymore?

Anyway, I agree the kids section is very important and should obviously be kept.

For the photographs my only thought for a private/public viewing area was based around the need to get some draft info up and also ensure that if there we're any say 10mb images these are not exposed publicly without at first being re-sized properly to a degree where they would not cause any bandwidth issues, just a thought.  Some of our members do not know how to do this and therefore an intermediate posting area will allow us to get it done for them, only a thought.

Again public and private forums are good ideas and the exposure of what where should be easy to decide and reflect upon at a later date, so I don't see any issues there either.

The observations part again is not the way to do it, obviously most of us would not have a clue how to send a report to whoever, because fundamentally we're not astronomers, we just like looking at things and taking pictures of them.  But unless we share our experiences how do we get any feedback or input from other people.  If members decide to send things to the BAA or whoever fine, but personally I'd be interested to read what people are doing and contribute as well.  I sometimes thins that there is no harm in sharing things between the society members and getting it vetted or reviewed, then we could always submit it to the appropriate people.

And who are the folks who do not want to see TOAST content on the web and why?  Surely publishing it will save postal costs and it will be easy to mitigate any risk of upsetting people by just informing them that submissions will be posted on the internet.  Unless you are talking about copy write graphics in which case by putting them in TOAST we are already breaking the law.  If people do not want it on the wbe it's likely that they are anti internet and they would not read the thing anyway?

Someone else join in please I have a company of 60+ developers writing web solutions to look after and this is like my daily job now  it hurts.

Chris

[Mike]

Chris,

I am with you with regard to the resolution. I think you would be hard pressed to find anyone using anything less than 1024 x 768 nowadays. I find the current website size is tiny on my resolution (1280 x 1024). Resolution independant coding for the site wouldn't be too hard to come up with at all and if we are going to invest so much time and money on the project then lets go the whole hog and do it properly, there are enough people with .net, php, xml, java, etc. coding experience for us to get some fancy coding going if necessary. There are also enough of us with artistic or graphical skills to not have to rely on busy people like Greg to update stuff.

I agree the kids section needs updating. From the statistics it seems like a popular entry point to the site and we should take advantage of that to get more visitors by ensuring the information is kept dynamic.

The gallery for me is an important part of the site that needs a serious overhaul. The ability to access full sized images via thumbnails or smaller images is essential really. The current gallery suffers from compressed images ruining the original beauty of the image. A search function would be very useful as well as a more intuitive interface and indexing system.

I don't really see a lot of point of observing notes unless the membership want it. As Chris says we don't do a lot of science in the society as we are more interested in the beauty of the heavens and more recently the astrophotography section has really taken off. Notes on how images were taken can be included in the gallery.

TOAST should be available online and password access to it can easly be enabled or blurring of information for non-members eyes can easily be done.

Another important point is that there is a team of editors and content managers rather than relying on one or two. As long as rigid set of rules is established with regard to the look and content and those persons folow those rules we won''t have any problems and will enable the site to be more dynamic.

I would like to see more sections about astronomy in there, i.e. information pages as well as articles or 'how-to' sections, i.e. how to polar align, how to stack images, how to find where an asteroid is to view/image it, etc. Take a look at the majority of the forum users and you will find that most of them are the same people who turn up at observing/imaging sessions and who are active or getting into astrophotography. Therefore the site should cater for these active persons with useful information for them on how to do various things related to their interest.

Anyway, i'm getting funny looks from my boss as i've been typing for some time now. I think he is concerned I am actually doing some work so I had better stop and walk around the office with a piece of paper in my hand instead.

[Rocket Pooch]

Good comments.

P.S. Learn to type quicker or be the boss.

[JohnP]

OK not a lot to add. Chris I think all your comments are excellent & well thought out. I totally agree that 1024 should be resolution - 800 X 600 has had it's day... I like all your ideas about webpage content & flexibility but with the added security features to avoid spammers etc. The society webpage needs to be a lot more accessibility especially where the gallery is concerned. Mike's comments about tutorials etc. are also good (i.e. polar alignment, guiding etc...) & the ability to view OAS meetings online if you can't make the meeting etc. would be excellent (a bit like what the BBC do with the Sky at night archives...).

Can you point us in the direction of a few more webpages set up this way (not necessarily astronomy) just to get a feel for the features/ layout etc. How long would it take to maybe just set up a trial webpage - I've no idea how much work would be involved...

Cheers,  John

[Rocket Pooch]

Hi John,

Here's a couple of projects I have worked on: -

http://www.portal.nelm.nhs.uk/PGD/default.aspx true portal

http://www.travelintelligence.net/php/writers/search_travel_writer.php crap php site

And probably a very good example is http://www.cloudynights.com/ not enough info with this one

However, without going into too many details these sites are not fully SEO'd and therefore are not found easily.  The www.portal.nelm.nhs.uk was up and running within a very short period of time, then it was customised.

Chris

[Rick]

In case you hadn't guessed, My browser windows are usually no wider than 800 or 900 pixels. Why? Because I like to have some screen real-estate to one side or other of the browser for other windows, copy-n-pasting links, text, and so on. So I will put my foot down and say that the basic site content must work at narrower widths without needing horizontal scrolling. I think we must also consider things like use via mobile phones these days. Some mobile phone browsers do a better job than others at scaling web pages to fit, but the widest mobile phone displays are 640 pixels, and most are much less. I don't want to constrain the design to a maximum of 800, but I do want the layout to work at various widths without any horizontal scrolling.

Now, when it comes to gallery images, we need a gallery system that will do the re-scaling required in a sensible way. I'd like something that worked a bit like this: You upload your full-size image and its associated description. The site then produces a thumbnail. When someone looks at the image, the gallery provides a re-sized copy of the original at an appropriate scale unless they specifically select a "download at this size" option. Obviously, past a certain size, scroll bars will appear on both axes, and that's perfectly reasonable.

[Rick]

Incidentally, part of the OAS's "job" is to encourage amateur astronomers to do good science; recording results in a way that renders them scientifically useful, and allowing for the possibility that the results be reported through the appropriate channels. If I'm honest, I'd probably give us a "could do better" mark on that...  

[Rocket Pooch]

Hi Rick,

Am I reading this right, what were actually doing here is pretending to contribute to a redesign, but the committee will make its mind up anyway irrespective of our views?

I'm not 100% positive that this is the case but it now sounds like it.  We seem to have two camps, one camp for change and one for staying as it is, and without getting myself in too much trouble here I'm not positive the current approach is the best way forward.  I truly believe that we can do a better job, and if we are invited to put forward our thoughts that they should be considered, not rejected based on a single personal opinion.

I'm not a diplomat, and never will be, so don't take this out of context, but if we ask members to contribute I believe they should be listened too.  I personally have never liked comments like: -

"My browser windows are usually no wider than 800 or 900 pixels. Why? Because I like to have some screen real-estate to one side or other of the browser for other windows, copy-n-pasting links, text, and so on. So I will put my foot down and say that the basic site content must work at narrower widths without needing horizontal scrolling."

It kind of gives me the feeling my presence is not valued, nor is the value of the very members we are trying to encourage to join it with the debate.


Chris

[Mike]

I think as a committee member I would put my foot down to fight for resolutions of at least 1024 pixels. I am sure that Rick is not saying that the decision has been made. The OAS is democaracy and is ran by its members and the committee will make a decision based on a majority vote. The committee will base it's decisions on what the majority of the members want.

Rick I think you are definately in a minority with respect to the resolution or page width you use. I have the luxury of having two high resolutions monitors attached to my system with one monitor at a minimum resolution of 1280. At least 1024 would be better for me. All my friends and family with PC's use a MINIMUM of 1024 width as their resolution, with a good number much higher than that.

However, I do agree that horizontal scrolling should no tbe necessary at all and vertical scrolling kept to a minimum. Good design will ensure this won't be a problem.

I agree we should try and cater for other ways of viewing the site such as phones and PDA's which is why i think resolution independant coding is required. At its simplest being able to detect the resolution of the users browser and then redirecting them to a set of pages customised to that resolution is easy enough. Clever coding that adjusts the page on the resolution it detects is also well within our capabilities.

How about we have a poll vote so people can register what resolution they are using at the moment (with instructions how to find out if they are not tech savvy) ?

[Ian]

it would seem appropriate that the maximum width of graphics and so on should be 800 wide (other than full size gallery images), but dynamically use screen realestate if available. I had a brief conversation with Greg on Thursday night along these lines.

I would make the comment that looking at the screen sizes that are sold by Dell PCWorld and so on, these are rarely smaller than a 17" lcd now, so before long we'll have peeps complaining that even at 1024 they have a white bit down the side.

If you're interested my resolution is 1400 wide, but I'm used to white bits down one side... (I'm sure there's a sunbathing gag there somewhere)

[Rick]

*sigh* I've a feeling there's some mis-understanding here, and it may be on my part. What I am saying is this:

I have no problem with having a design which is capable of filling (and scaling to, if necessary) whatever width is available. In fact I'd like to see it doing that. I'd like to see our site as easily browsed using a 320x240 mobile phone as with a new shiney top-end 3200x2400 display.

I do have a problem with a design that says "You must view this with a width of at least 1024 pixels", which is what seems to be being suggested. That, in my opinion, is as bad as saying "You must use Browser X". If that's not what was being suggested, then I apologise for mis-understanding.

And no, no firm decisions have yet been made, but some decisions seem very likely to go in particular directions for simple value-for-money reasons. However, that's for the committee to decide.

[Rocket Pooch]

Ok, I just checked the 5 PC's in my house the one which is seven years old is 800x600.  All the other laptops are 1024x768 and the PC's are 1280x1024 which is low resolution for the 17" monitors because I have bad eyesight.

Anyway, I still don't think there's anything wrong with having a minimum of 1024x768, and like this forum and new software will re-size down with scroll bars.  Also where's the mobile phone bit coming from I've worked with the Met Police, Orange, Vodaphone, LFEPA and also so TETRA prototyping and if you think we can have a one website to fit all I'm not sure its going to work.  Having said that though the best mobile device I have used recently is a PSP2, there really good.    Again I assume the committee will take into account the potential audience of the site and not design it based on personal preferences?  Would it be possible for the committee discuss this and possible for a working group of people to finalize the design, again I'm willing to help.

So what about the content and the platform, how should this be moved forward?  I have done some digging around and assuming that the committee is anti Microsoft (I think I'm right there) what are we looking at in terms of the platform and how it should be used.  Again, I personally would like to see the less technical amongst us, err like Tony or Fay for example, sorry Tony and Fay, being able to load content which can be approved and edited.  This was we will be able to have a truly contributory portal by the members for the members.  Do we have a preferred CMS system for the basis of the site yet?

Also during the re-design I personally would like to see some thoughts being put into SEO work to ensure that the site can get crawled and listed properly.  I really do thing there are people at the OAS who like myself would like to contribute to the content and make us a repository for amateur astronomy content.

Chris

[Ian]

It sounds to me like you're talking more about a wiki than a full blown CMS system. I personally quite like the idea of a wiki, but it does present a different sort of challenge to set up and administer.

As a one time sysadmin my primary concern would be the level of administration a site would require, and that is where the committee has to have the final say. This is primarily because the committee have the responsibility to the membership to do their bidding and provide a website that presents an appropriate impression to the outside world. If the administration of the site is sufficiently time consuming or just plain hard the site will rapidly decend and we'd all be harking back to the days where it was largely static, but neat, tidy and a good representation of the society.

I also have my doubts that we should be aiming to provide a site that looks good on any platform regardless. I believe this is rarely done, but should a mobile user (for example)  try to view the site, this should be picked up by the server and redirected to appropriately formatted content. Rick, a question, do we see many connections from mobile phones currently?

[Rick]

The mobile phone thing is coming from my observations of what folks are carrying around these days. 3G phones and services are a bit expensive at present, but I expect costs will come down. For example, T-Mobile are now pushing "free" upgrades at pay-as-you-go customers so that they have phones capable of using their Web-and-Walk, and they've capped the penny-a Kb bandwidth charge at a quid a day. So things like the locations, dates and times of observing evenings and meetings probably ought to be readable on a 3G phone's browser. The smarter mobile phone browsers cope tolerably well with a css-driven site, and some of them are also smart enough to scale images appropriately. Yes, trying to cover widths all the way from 320 to 3200 is definitely pushing it, but being open to the possibility would be wise. I'll check such logs as I have for possible mobile phone connections...

My linux workstation at work is 1600 wide. I still only open browser windows 800 pixels wide. That way I can have two side by side. Very few sites ever throw horizontal scroll bars at me, and the ones that do are almost always ones where there's an image dictating the width. Very occasionally it's caused by there being fixed-format mono-spaced example code instead. If a design is done well then available width will be used without demanding horizontal scrolling except where absolutely necessary.

A few folk have been exploring possible hosting provider options and CMS/Wiki/Gallery choices, and I expect the sub-committee will discuss them at its next meeting. Finding a system which allows the "less technical folk" involved to update their particular sections easily is top of my priority list. Finding something that is secure and relatively easy to administer comes a close second, and it must also, obviously, be something the Society can afford...

[Mac]

If your looking for web space and are worried about bandwith ect,
have a look at www.UK2.net, I have used this for a few sites i've designed for and their prices are very reasonable.

It aslo allows scripts so you can create a members only area, ect, which is password protected.

As for the screen size I have always designed with 1024 * 768 in mind

Prices start from £3.29 a month for 2.5 Gig and 100G a month bandwith, which should be adequate.

Regarding spammers
I agree that you should be able to view all the forum posts but to reply to them you need to register, this is then checked and authorised 24hrs later, this should get round the bots, ect.

You've only to look at the newsgroups alt.astronomy & sci.stro.amateur to see how they have been ruined by spammers & bots. One other thought is to include a word in the topic something like ASTRO, that way it would get round the bot posts, as they generally dont include these in their posts and would then be easily visible and easy to ignore.

Ideas for the web site.
Just a thought on something else that could be included in the web site.
On the night sky page you could have a list of all the constelations showing everything that is visible within each constelation area, this could be as a web page as well as a PDF for download and printing. I know most people have star software but for a quick reference for people who dont have access to these programs they could be useful.

Also another idea could be a software page, Listing the software that People use and what it's used for as well as links to where they can obtain it ect..

This would be Ideal for people starting out in Astro Photography, as it would give them an idea as what software should be used for and how to use it.  you could include a hints and tips part as well for getting the best use out of their equipment and software.

Thanks for the post & link for the skystacker mike, i'm going to have a look at that.

Just a thought regarding the Gallery,
It seems a little jumbeld, one idea for a layout would be to sort the pictures in to groups somthing along the lines of

http://www.digitalsky.org.uk

(why reinvent the wheel)

Where he has the Solar system broken down into individual groups, as well as all the deep sky objects, clusters, galaxies ect. as a clickable tree view.

You could then add another group listing the members and their pictures, as well as new pictures ect,

As someone mentioned at the end of the meeting going for the Messier Marathon, we could also have a messier group ect.
(sorry i dont know many peoples names yet)

Mac.

Fays Friend

[Rick]

Thanks Mac. I'll add that provider to the list the sub-committee will consider.

The gallery archive ( http://gal.orpington-astronomy.org.uk/ ) is a bit more ordered and a bit more comprehensive than the gallery on the main site. If I had the space I'd not have the gallery split, but put the entire archive on the main site, and provde a few more ways of grouping images. The archive is only grouped two ways - by contributor and by subject, though some of the subject indices over-lap. If things look random it's because I've put things in an illogical order.

[Rick]

Rick, a question, do we see many connections from mobile phones currently?

I've tried looking at the raw counter logs. We do get occasional visits from mobile phones, but it's right down round 0.1% of hits.