AmateurSpaceImages.com, A site to gather great amateur-processed space images Options

[elakdawalla]

I can't believe I haven't started a dedicated thread on this before now!! I wanted to open a discussion on the Planetary Society's plans to develop a website called AmateurSpaceImages.com, a place that will collect amateur-processed space images into one place that is easy to browse and search for great pictures, and from which you'll be able to share them easily via social networks. The organization of the site will be based on Photojournal, which is itself based on the way the PDS structures space data -- all images will be filed under the "target" and "mission" and "instrument," plus there will be image titles, captions, and correct credits; plus there'll be tags and a search feature. The site is currently under development and is planned for launch early next year (hopefully March, if the schedule doesn't slip). We're now raising funds from the community to support its development.

Some of you have been emailing me privately with questions; I think it'd be neater (and less effort for me ) to have that discussion in the open, on this thread. If for some reason you'd like your question to be anonymous, you can email me and I'll post it here. Since this is a website we are creating especially for the community that has grown up in and around UMSF, I hope you will participate in its formation!

[elakdawalla]

Hi all. To gloss over an eventful few months in a few words, I've ditched the programmer and am just about ready to launch amateurspaceimages.com as a part of the Society's new website, which, as it developed, had pretty much all the capability I needed built right in. It'll be based on the functionality of the Space Images section of the site -- browse that to enjoy the keyword searching and nice page-filling display of huge images -- but I've added in some extra bits and pieces like authorship of images (which means you'll be able to pull up a dynamic list of your own images that have been posted on the site). There are a couple of small pieces that I have to wrap up, but it should be ready for prime time before long. I am posting now because I am finally ready to make a call to people who produce a lot of images to help me populate the site. When the site goes live there will be a submission form to upload one image at a time (and of course a moderation process) but I can also perform a batch import of properly prepared images and metadata.

So if you would like to see your work included at amateurspaceimages.com, here is what you have to do. It is a bit of work to do this preparation and I hope not to have to do it all myself.

In a nutshell: For each image there needs to be a line in a spreadsheet or CSV file containing metadata.

Image files: -- JPG, GIF, or PNG format, any file size is fine. Best way to send lots of files is probably something like Dropbox or Google Drive.

Image metadata

Fill out attached spreadsheet with one line for each image submission. There is an example line in the spreadsheet to help you.

 amateur_image_metadata.txt ( 1.84K ) Number of downloads: 467


Explanations of the columns:

title: A few-word title for the image, used for display on website and for image alt text

filename: image filename

photo_credit: full credit line for the image

data_date (optional but desirable): date the original data was acquired. It's okay to use either Y/M/D, M/D/Y, or D/M/Y, as long as it's obvious to me which one you're using.

description: Paragraph used as caption and as short description in search results. 1 or 2 sentences. For usefulness in search, make sure it mentions the target and the spacecraft, good also to mention processor (you) by name.

body: Optional (but HIGHLY DESIRABLE) extended description of the image and how it was processed. If you've written a blog entry about the image, you could paste that here. Use basic HTML markup for formatting (<p>, <a>, <em>, <strong> all ok). Links to original data sources would be great. It's also fine to put here a teaser and link to something about the image on your own blog or website or, for that matter, on this forum. Or include none of this.

Finally: Anyone who has images on the site will also have a profile page that will index your image submissions. Here's a good example of an existing profile, of Ted Stryk. Please send me text and a 233x233 pixel photo to use for your profile!

I am hoping to make this live before I leave for vacation in July. I have enough images to go live with now, and can add batch submissions afterward. But the more, the merrier! Bring them on!!!