BroadlandAstro

Ongoing development of the initial phases, building basic website, building contributor directory, figuring out submission flow, site mechanics etc. Background: Imaging Space ? Vision.

Aiming for November. Prints/products on SpacePictures; installs/commissions on SpacePix. Will open with just my images available to start with. Hopefully in time for potential Christmas present purchases... Try and get a calendar together for 2026

Aiming for October. A stable personal website for background, updates and galleries. Need to get Broadland Digital involved to help me set up the "shop" that is SpacePictures.co.uk and talk to them about print fulfillment (POD).

Mid-2025 I switched broadband provider to Andrews and Arnold which gives me the opportunity to try hosting the websites myself at home. Figured the site won't have heavy traffic and I have a PC spare that's capable enough to start off with. Started setting up the server and getting everything ready to deploy the sites myself.

New framework/pitch finally clicked for Imaging Space, so I started moving forward again. Did a bit more reading and coding got much easier with ChatGPT-5. I?d already built an offline AI chat tool with ChatGPT-4; but 5 made it a lot easier to start building the websites properly.

I didn?t have any website hosting sorted yet, so I paused launching BroadlandAstro.com and halted development across the Imaging Space websites while JWST and Rubin dominated the headlines. I had to figure out how to position amateur work alongside the spectacular images dominating the "space news". Frankly I pretty much gave up on the idea? ?who?s gonna wanna see amateur images now??

I wrote this as a piece to submit to astro magazines to promote Kubuntu as part of the media team. Never got round to submitting it though, due to not being happy with it. I?m not a writer and don?t just want to cheat by getting AI to write it for me, so it?s still pretty rough. ChatGPT definitely helped get this website off the ground by helping me with the coding, but I don?t want to use it to write ?copy? for me. Spell checking etc. is fine, but full-on passing its work off as my own? that feels like cheating to me.

I use Kubuntu (Linux) as the OS for my PC, mainly because I?m sick of all the data Microsoft/Apple et al. collect about everything we do. In March 2024 I spotted Kubuntu?s wallpaper competition, submitted one of my nebula images, and won. My Cone Nebula image is now distributed with every copy of Kubuntu as a bundled desktop wallpaper. I was also invited to join the media team but was totally out of my depth as I?m an end user and knew nothing about software development, then life took a little dip and I put that ? and thoughts about my website ? on the back burner for a bit.

Sketched out the ecosystem: a contributor hub (Imaging Space), a shop (SpacePictures.co.uk), and an installs/commissions/outreach site (SpacePix.art). Registered domains and began early dev.

I'd done a bit of reading and ChatGPT could help me with basic HTML coding so I created first layouts, a gallery pipeline, and site structure. Lots of copy/navigation iteration to find something that worked.

I was tired of the noise of social media, didn?t like the way Etsy and the like were run and I wanted a personal site where I could keep things simple, own the presentation, and write in my own voice. I didn?t want to use Wix etc., didn?t know anything about web development and certainly couldn?t afford to pay a developer, so it stayed an idea ? but I did buy the domain and started doing some reading. Side note: I originally intended BroadlandAstro.com to be my only website.

Learning the craft, building observatories, upgrading bits of kit, and just getting out under clear skies when I could.