The Astrosky Ecosystem
We're building new social media tools for astronomers and astronomy enthusiasts online - from feeds to account hosting.
Website: https://astrosky.eco | GitHub: github.com/the-astrosky-ecosystem
Account managed by @emily.space
- Social media is essential for outreach and communication. So why should a single bad actor be able to destroy it? 🔭☄️ We don't think that should be the case, and that's why we're building The Astrosky Ecosystem - starting with the Astronomy feeds. We now have a paper about our project! #astrocode
- The paper also includes some statistics about the feeds - like that the astronomy feed averages 750,000 views a week from 91,000 unique viewers. 🤯 If you're an astronomer or astrophotographer, you can sign up to be able to post to the feeds here on Bluesky! Instructions: 🔭☄️
- On Monday, we're going to be arXiv-official! 🔭☄️ We just submitted a short paper outlining our project to the arXiv 🥳
- There are some fun stats in there, like the number of weekly views that the feed gets! 🔭☄️
- We're rolling out some new bespoke branding designed by the wonderful Janine Jochum in Vienna - you'll see the logos on the feeds and on our accounts change over time! These logos were handmade for us 🎨, and they replace the emojis we used before as temporary stand-ins across the project!
- AND: if you get in touch with @kwcookastro.bsky.social at #AAS247, then you can get a sticker or two for your laptop to rep the new social media space we're building here IRL!
- At the AAS meeting this week? Find Kyle if you'd like to get some free sticker swag for your laptop! 🔭☄️
- Do you enjoy the Astronomy feeds? Help us to build them! 🔭 We'd especially love to hear from you if you're a frontend developer, but we're looking for a range of skills:
- Help us to build the Astronomy feeds and The Astrosky Ecosystem! 🔭 ☄️ #astrophotography We'd especially like to find >1 frontend dev to help work on replacing @bot.astronomy.blue with a simpler web interface, but we have some backend & devops needs to fill too. More details in the post below ⬇️
- Our developer team is a mixed group of software engineers, scientists, and students. Whether you're an astronomer looking to improve your software skills or you want to contribute to the open web, we'd love to have you join us! 🔭 ☄️ #astrophotography
- Spam over - sorry for clogging your timeline for a sec!
- Welcome to the Stellar Astronomy feed! • You need to sign up for your posts to appear here. • Then, add #stellarastrononomy or #stellarastro to your post. • Check out our other feeds! See the FAQ for more info:
- Welcome to the Heliophysics (Astro) feed! • You need to sign up for your posts to appear here. • Then, add #heliophysics or #solarastro to your post. • Check out our other feeds! See the FAQ for more info:
- This feed exists for technical purposes.
- Welcome to the AstroSci feed! Contains posts about astronomy and planetary science research. • You need to sign up for your posts to appear here. • Then, add ☄️ or #astrosci to your post. • Check out our other feeds! See the FAQ for more info:
- Welcome to the Radio Astronomy feed! • You need to sign up for your posts to appear here. • Then, add #radioastronomy or #radioastro to your post. • Check out our other feeds! See the FAQ for more info:
- This feed exists for technical purposes.
- Welcome to the Planetary Science feed! • You need to sign up for your posts to appear here. • Then, add #planetaryscience or #planetsci to your post. • Check out our other feeds! See the FAQ for more info:
- Welcome to the Milky Way feed! • You need to sign up for your posts to appear here. • Then, add #galactic or #galacticastro to your post. • Check out our other feeds! See the FAQ for more info:
- Welcome to the Astro Software & Methods feed! Discuss software and stats for astro here. • You need to sign up for your posts to appear here. • Then, add #astromethods, #astrocoding or #astrocode to your post. • Check out our other feeds! See the FAQ for more info:
- Welcome to the Astro Instrumentation feed! Discuss astronomy instrumentation here. • You need to sign up for your posts to appear here. • Then, add #instrumentation to your post. • Check out our other feeds! See the FAQ for more info:
- Welcome to the History of Astronomy feed! • You need to sign up for your posts to appear here. • Then, add #astrohistory or #historyofastronomy to your post. • Check out our other feeds! See the FAQ for more info:
- Welcome to the High Energy Astrophysics feed! • You need to sign up for your posts to appear here. • Then, add #highenergyastro to your post. • Check out our other feeds! See the FAQ for more info:
- Welcome to the Extragalactic Astronomy feed! • You need to sign up for your posts to appear here. • Then, add #extragalactic or #extragalacticastro to your post. • Check out our other feeds! See the FAQ for more info:
- Welcome to the Exoplanets feed! • You need to sign up for your posts to appear here. • Then, add #exoplanet or #exoplanets to your post. • Check out our other feeds! See the FAQ for more info:
- Welcome to the Astronomy Education feed! Discuss astronomy education here. • You need to sign up for your posts to appear here. • Then, add #astroeducation or #astroedu to your post. • Check out our other feeds! See the FAQ for more info:
- Welcome to the Cosmology feed! • You need to sign up for your posts to appear here. • Then, add #cosmology to your post. • Check out our other feeds! See the FAQ for more info:
- Welcome to the Astrophotography feed! • You need to sign up for your posts to appear here. • Then, add #astrophoto, #astrophotos or #astrophotography to your post. • Check out our other feeds! See the FAQ for more info:
- Welcome to the Astrosky feed! Contains all posts from all signed up users of the Astronomy feeds. • You need to sign up for your posts to appear here. • Check out our other feeds! See the FAQ for more info:
- Welcome to the Astronomy feed! Contains a filtered view of astronomy content on Bluesky. • You need to sign up for your posts to appear here. • Then, add 🔭, #astro or #astronomy to your post. • Check out our other feeds! See the FAQ for more info:
- We're about to send lots of posts from this account, which will be the new main pinned posts for the Astronomy feeds - sorry for the spam!
- We just posted a getting started guide on our website, with tips & advice on how to get started on Bluesky. Share it with a colleague or friend who might like it here! 🔭☄️ #astrophotography
- (x-posted & updated from @emily.space's original post)
- Reminder for the #exoplanets feed:
- Important news about the #exoplanets feed: We have removed the planet emoji as a way to post to the feed. Consistently, around ~50% of the posts to the feed are false positives, as 🪐 is a really common emoji. You can still post to it with #exoplanets!
- Important news about the Stellar Astronomy feed: we have removed #stars as a way to post to this feed due to false positives - as with the other subtopic feeds, it's only intended for scientific posts! You can now only post to it with #stellarastronomy or #stellarastro.
- Important news about the Milky Way feed #galactic: We have removed the hashtag #milkyway as a way to post to the feed, as it was causing a huge number of false positives. The hashtags for the feed are now just #galactic or #galacticastro. As a reminder, the feed is intended just for science posts!
- Important news about the #exoplanets feed: We have removed the planet emoji as a way to post to the feed. Consistently, around ~50% of the posts to the feed are false positives, as 🪐 is a really common emoji. You can still post to it with #exoplanets!
- We want to make sure that subtopic feeds are clean experiences to catch up on a specific subset of posts, and having so many false positives otherwise ruins that. #exoplanets If you're looking for a science feed you can post to with an emoji, then the new AstroSci feed just needs a ☄️:
- For the next ~1 week, the main Astronomy feed will still include posts containing a 🪐, so your posts won't be completely missing from the feeds if you forget. #exoplanets @emily.space and the mod team will also try to remind you!
- 📌 We have a new feed aimed at professional astronomers! 📌 The AstroSci feed is just for science posts, and you can post your smoking hot research there with the comet emoji ☄️ AstroSci crossposts back to the main Astronomy feed, and all subtopic feeds post into it too. 🔭
- We're moving hosting providers for the Astronomy feeds today! Ingestion of new posts & the feeds themselves will be degraded for at least a few hours. 🔭 #astrophotos #exoplanets #cosmology #milkyway #stars #planetsci We'll post any updates in the thread below ⬇️
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View full thread🥳 The webserver and database are now moved over! Final step is to start up the astrobot & post consumers on the new servers
- All done! (Everything went to plan, so it was actually really quick)
- All done - it actually only took a few minutes! Normal service resumes on our new, shiny hosting! 🔭 #astrophotos #exoplanets #cosmology #milkyway #stars #planetsci
- We're moving hosting providers for the Astronomy feeds today! Ingestion of new posts & the feeds themselves will be degraded for at least a few hours. 🔭 #astrophotos #exoplanets #cosmology #milkyway #stars #planetsci We'll post any updates in the thread below ⬇️
- Database is migrated (that was suspiciously easy). We're about to reconfigure the website to point at the new server - this might take the feed down for a bit
- How to pin the Astronomy feed to your home screen:
- Good morning, #AAS245! Help your colleagues join Bluesky with the starter pack below ⬇️
- During #AAS245, we're going to maintain a starter pack of attendees & astro organizations! 🔭 Share the link with your colleagues, or put the QR code below on your slides or poster. DM this account if you're attending and would like to be added! go.bsky.app/BuMuip3
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- You could use the SkyFeed generator I think? For the big conferences over the summer, we can try and have automatic conference feed setup created. On the dev team, we're thinking about how we can support conferences in the future (not just the big ones!) with feeds & starter packs.
- During #AAS245, we're going to maintain a starter pack of attendees & astro organizations! 🔭 Share the link with your colleagues, or put the QR code below on your slides or poster. DM this account if you're attending and would like to be added! go.bsky.app/BuMuip3
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- Don't see why not! It should be possible to semi-automate its creation, too (with a command like the feeds signup command.)
- Want to meet others at #AAS245? Check out our starter pack of people & organisations that are there! If you're there and want to join the starter pack, DM this account.at://did:plc:xy2zorw2ys47poflotxthlzg/app.bsky.graph.starterpack/3lfhc4gavcw2a
