We look forward to posting your images. Here are some guidelines for submitting them.
Subject Matter
Please submit your favorite amateur astronomy related images. These can be photos of astronomical objects, star parties, club or astronomy events, your equipment, observatories...you get the idea.
How to Submit
Email your images and information about each image to:
If you have more than 10 Megabytes of file data to send, please consider sending them in smaller batches over the course of a few days, or supplying a CD-ROM with the files at a club meeting or observing session. Please only submit images that you have taken. If you wish to post someone else's photos, we need to receive their permission to post them here.
Image Format
Depending on how comfortable you are using your image editing software, you may either prepare your images to use as-is in the gallery, or have us prepare the final files for you. See these two options below:
Let Us Prep It For You
If you are not comfortable resizing, cropping, or adding copyright text to your photos, please submit them as-is in either jpg or tif format. Specify in your email how you would like your name presented in the copyright line.
Do It Yourself
Because it can take some time to prep images for presentation in the gallery, any prep work you can do ahead of time will be helpful. If you are familiar enough with your image processing software to resize and crop images, you can take care of a couple steps for us. If you know how to add text to your images, that's another helpful step. See the following
Image Format
Please provide images in jpg format. Avoid choosing a jpg compression level that is too aggressive, since this can add unsightly distortions to your photos.
Image Sizes
In most cases, images in the gallery will be presented in three sizes. A small Thumbnail image that displays in the main gallery pages. A Medium image that displays on the individual photo page. And an optional Large image that viewers can link to to see a larger, more detailed view if it is available at that size. If possible, save three jpg versions of your image at the following sizes:
- Large Image: Up to 1200 pixels along the image's longest dimension. If you think it would really benefit from being larger, go for it. But 1200 pixels is probably a good maximum to work with.
- Medium Image: 640 pixels along the image's longest dimension.
- Thumbnail Image: Exactly 100 x 100 pixels. Since most images are not perfectly square, you will likely need to crop your image to be square before resizing the thumbnail to 100 x 100 pixels.
Copyright Information
We want to discourage the improper use of your images by site visitors. Of course, on the web, there are no guarantees, but it is helpful to let the public know that you expect your copyright to be honored. If your image processing software lets you add text, please add "Copyright" + [Year] + [Your Name] somewhere on your image. See some of the existing photos on the site for examples. Don't worry about this text showing up on your thumbnail image, but it should be readable on the Medium and Large images.
Image Information
Please include as much of the following information as possible. At the very least, include the first 2 items.
- Subject
A short description of the content of your photo. - Photographer Name
- Date/Time
Date and time the photo was taken. This can be a general time frame if you don't recall the specific time (e.g. June 2006 or Spring 2005) - Location
Location from which you took the photo. - Optics
Description of the telescope or lens used to take the photo. If you used a camera with a built-in lens, there is no need to include this information. - Camera
Type of camera used to take the exposure. - Exposure
List the exposure length (e.g.: 1/10 second, 30 seconds, 5 x 10 minutes) - Processing
Description of any processing and software used on the image - Supporting Links
Any web links that may provide additional information about your photo. - Additional Information
Any additional information you would like to write about your photo.
Updated August 25, 2007