New website for observers

[Steve Gottlieb]

With help from friends, family and AI, I’ve assembled a personal website with all my observing notes (currently over 24,000 objects) which can be accessed with a robust search engine. This includes object data (position, mag, size, type, etc.), historical background information on all NGC and IC objects, an image viewer (DSS, SDSS, PanSTARRS), and a direct link to the SIMBAD astronomical database.

In addition, I’ve posted 115 personal observing reports, several of my Sky and Telescope articles, and a biography. There’s more to come, but you can check it out at deepskygottlieb.com.

If you run across bugs, or have a request for an additional feature or section, let me know.

-- Steve

[Richard Navarrete]

Check it out, it’s awesome!

Richard

Sent from the all new AOL app for iOS

--

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[Paul Alsing]

Amazing! It is going to take a long time to get up to speed on all the features available, Steve. I believe this is destined to be the ultimate observing resource... especially if one has an internet connection from their observing field!

Paul

To view this discussion visit https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/sf-bay-tac/1890691658.2284652.1776091730930%40mail.yahoo.com.

[Alan Agrawal]

Hi Steve,

Very nice - the website has a great interface.  I see I can choose Gottlieb's favorites in Catalog.  Wow- 307 out of 24,000+ objects made your favorites list - a distinguished group!  I'd like to see as many as I can from this favorties group at Calstar this week.  Are you going?

Best,

Alan

[ivor....@gmail.com]

Awesome site Steve!

Thanks for sharing.

It will keep me entertained during these dreary Chicago nights.

--Ivor

[Dan Smiley]

very exciting news! took me minute to figure out that after inputting object in Database Explorer you need to scroll down for the observing notes. great to have this resource thanks!

[Howard Banich]

Wow!

Howard

To view this discussion visit https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/sf-bay-tac/56664b06-17d2-4c17-b0b5-9267084e25e5n%40googlegroups.com.

[Surya Rao]

Excellent website, Steve!

Surya

To view this discussion visit https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/sf-bay-tac/CAKB1n2EJ%3DWcSdWMLHBLqrJaJhBidjMt-Hf-6sjbu62enhW0XXQ%40mail.gmail.com.

[Paul Alsing]

I've known for a long time that Steve is out standing in his field

[Akarsh Simha]

I've not had the time to poke at this wonderful website yet. Steve sent me a preview a few weeks ago. The domain name deepskygottlieb.com sounds just right. And Paul your image made my day!

Regards

Akarsh

Will miss y'all this weekend

To view this discussion visit https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/sf-bay-tac/3d2a1c46-8e23-4a94-a1f5-1bd54909007en%40googlegroups.com.

[Paul Alsing]

BTW, that image is from today, April 13th... in 2010, when we were at Jimi's in Fort Davis!

\Paul

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From: sf-ba...@googlegroups.com <sf-ba...@googlegroups.com> on behalf of Akarsh Simha <akars...@gmail.com>
Sent: Monday, April 13, 2026 12:42 PM
To: sf-ba...@googlegroups.com <sf-ba...@googlegroups.com>
Subject: Re: [TAC] New website for observers

To view this discussion visit https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/sf-bay-tac/CA%2B9k5ty6rUDa7op-3qw-s8-Nkuv5BMFWwet8AUzy%2BCUkf9%2BhUg%40mail.gmail.com.

[Rajah]

It’s going to take a loooooong time before I can claim I have ‘checked out’ the website. Amazing Steve!!!!

To view this discussion visit https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/sf-bay-tac/DSVPR20MB994699B15E2D490A88E939F9A7FD242%40DSVPR20MB994699.namprd20.prod.outlook.com.

[Richard Ozer]

Fantastic Steve!

To view this discussion visit https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/sf-bay-tac/CAGwcBaLiCxb-FqTp3AWcU6ZLnkOvyL7mhTKB1OZHtLq7v_BvtQ%40mail.gmail.com.

[Teamonger]

Very nice Steve! I have added to the external links on your Wikipedia page.

Raymond

[Alex]

Good job Steve! Looks and feels solid. AI is always to the rescue of long overdue complex projects like that. The only remaining final piece missing is a cool website icon for browsers to display in the tab and the favorites list.

[Steve Gottlieb]

If you add the website to your home page on a mobile device, you should see an icon with the barred spiral galaxy NGC 7479. 

-- Steve

On Apr 14, 2026, at 1:52 PM, Alex <alex.k...@gmail.com> wrote:



Good job Steve! Looks and feels solid. AI is always to the rescue of long overdue complex projects like that. The only remaining final piece missing is a cool website icon for browsers to display in the tab and the favorites list.

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[Alex]

Steve, it's missing in desktop browsers because mobile browsers and desktop browsers look for different files.

Mobile: Often looks for "Apple Touch Icons" or manifest files (apple-touch-icon.png).

Desktop Chrome: Primarily looks for a specific file named favicon.ico in the root directory or a <link rel="icon" ...> tag in the HTML header.

The Conflict: If the website only defined the mobile-specific icons, a mobile browser will show it proudly, while desktop Chrome may see nothing and default to the "blank page" icon.

[Steve Gottlieb]

Thanks for the clarification, Alex. I'll add the correct image file for desktop browsers (I assume I need both?) in the next update. It should work for now on a mobile browser or home page (and it does with my iPhone). 

Although there is a filter for V magnitude range, I was thinking of adding a separate filter to search for objects based on aperture.  The idea is someone might want to filter for objects (meeting other criteria) that included observations through a 12” or smaller aperture (because they used an 8”) or perhaps objects with observations through a scope larger than a 12” (because they have an 18”). Not exactly sure of the best interface (min/max values?), but would this be useful?

Steve

The Conflict: If the website only defined the mobile-specific icons, a mobile browser will show it proudly, while desktop Chrome may see nothing and default to the "blank page" icon.<image.png>

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[Alex]

Steve. That's right, both should work for their use case. Also, there are straightforward online favicon.ico generators from a supplied png.

Regarding the aperture, I think, min/max could be confusing, just the singular aperture size of the user's instrument would give you its rough limiting capability, which should suffice for filtering by magnitude (unless the idea is to also address the object angular size and type). I would just make sure the feature is described for less techy users, like what is the intended use in a few words, and then just make internal decisions on how to actually filter different data to display.

[Dan Smiley]

NGC 7479=S=Steve=Superman galaxy