5.61
#...
·
·
2
likes
|
|---|
|
I have wondered for some time if anyone has an estimated number for how many astroimagers there are in the world? I would include planetary, lunar, and deep sky but NOT landscape type widefield DSLR type stuff (which is perfectly legitimate but not astroimaging, IMHO, but a sperate category). All I know is a whole lot more now than when I started ion the early 1990s...  |
0.00
#...
·
·
1
like
|
|---|
| Not alot of information, but I know there has definitely been a spike in the the 2020s with the amount of teenage to young adult astrophotographers (myself included). There are large communities with this general age group on a community platform known as discord, that community alone has around 20'000 people (that being said the amount who actually do astrophotography in these groups is probably a bit lower) |
11.64
#...
·
·
2
likes
|
|---|
| My wild guess: any where between 10 and 100 times the number of users on Astrobin. If you only count serious imagers, the factor may be smaller, but should be still larger than 5. |
11.35
#...
·
·
1
like
|
|---|
|
When I posted my first image here on Astrobin in 2017, there were fifteen pages of paying members of the site at 100 imagers per page. I think there are now around 200 pages. |
 #...
·
·
19
likes
|
|---|
| @wsg, I wonder what list of paying members you refer to, because I don't publish one (tho probably the undocumented API could be used to find one -- not sensitive information tho: that's not available anywhere). AstroBin does not have 20,000 paying members :-) I think you refer to the "Astrophotographers list", and that's all accounts, not paying members. Anyway, since I'm here, and I'm one of the people who can make an educated guess, I will say that I don't actually know how many active astrophotographers there are, and this is something I would definitely like to know, as it represents AstroBin's market size. One thing that surprises me, is that, despite the fact that it's a paid service. AstroBin is much larger than other astrophotography communities when it comes to measuring activity. AstroBin has around 9,000 active users who post images (this is users who have posted an image during the past 365 days), and they post an average of 265 images per day. In contrast, if you check astrophotography communities on free platforms: - /r/astrophotography on Reddit has millions of users, but only 25 posts a day or so, which means it's just lots of lurkers, people who like to look at space pictures, lurkers, and bots - Astrophotography on Facebook has around 170k users, and also around 25 posts per day. Same as above, lurkers and bots. - Browsing the #astrophotography hash tag on Instagram, you see that it has 5.1 million posts, but then you look at it and most of them are: 3D renderings that look like covers of sci-fi books, scantly clad women, irrelevant images, memes, astrology posts, and so on). Maybe 20% are actual astrophotographs, so a million images? That's slightly more images than AstroBin has, and AstroBin and Instagram are about the same age Anyway, I don't have a way to tell for certain, but I suppose that the real number of active astrophotographers worldwide, is around 2 to 5 times the amount of active users on AstroBin. So perhaps 20,000 to 50,000. I could be entirely wrong, tho :-D I'd be surprised if it was 10x, meaning that AstroBin has only a 10% market penetration, but then again, I don't have numbers to back this up... it's only a gut feeling. |
|
11.35
#...
·
|
|---|
|
Hi Salvatore, yes the Astrophotographers List was my reference. scott |
7.12
#...
·
·
1
like
|
|---|
| Probably Celestron, ZWO, Skywatcher have a good idea about the size of the market for serious AP. Wonder if they ever released sales data in the past. |
0.00
#...
·
·
1
like
|
|---|
|
Another possible way to estimate the size of the community is to check the number of subscribers to popular astrophotographers on YouTube. Especially the ones less catering to complete beginners. Like Adam Block or Visible Dark. They have about 10-15k subscribers. Galactic hunter has 35k. So I think a guess of 30-50k is probably not far off @Salvatore Iovene You also have mainstream content creators like Astrobackyard, but I think that caters more to the masses of people somewhat interested in astronomy, with 500k subscribers. |
4.20
#...
·
·
1
like
|
|---|
So I think a guess of 30-50k is probably not far off Jeez, I'm pretty rare then. One of 50k out of 7.8 billion. |
3.87
#...
·
·
1
like
|
|---|
|
Interesting, I tried to look at the data for CN but I can't find a way to sort the AP from the EAA or visual users. Anyway, there are about 14040 members that have posted in the last year and of that about 7000 have more than 50 posts total (not just the last year). Not terribly useful for multiple reasons (mainly an English language forum and no way to sort by astronomy interest) but a data point. Even if you had access to sales data from all of the major players, there is no easy way to get it right. For example, I have used 6 different cameras for AP in the last year (including 2 guide cameras) but only 1 guide camera was bought new. My mounts were used and so was one of my scopes. My oldest camera (an Orion SSAG) is over 10 years old now and 2 others aren't much newer. |
3.71
#...
·
·
1
like
|
|---|
There's one at my house - that's all I'll speculate on. |
|
11.35
#...
·
·
1
like
|
|---|
There's one at my house - that's all I'll speculate on. Really? I would have bet that there was two.  scott |
3.34
#...
·
·
2
likes
|
|---|
| Someone commented, some time back, that they thought the number of folks interested in AP and astro things had gone up a lot during COVID. People were stuck more at home and needed a new outlet. It seems that equipment came in short supply about the same time. No clue on the numbers… |
|
5.61
#...
·
·
1
like
|
|---|
So I think a guess of 30-50k is probably not far off Not as rare as I was (albeit at a very primitive level) in 1993 when the ST4 guider was our idea of a cutting edge device! 30-50 thousand does sound reasonable. It is also good to see the penetration of Astrobin. |
|
4.20
#...
·
|
|---|
Ed Dixon: You are right, tons of people went into AP and astronomy during COVID lockdown. They had nothing else to do.  It's WAY better than staring at the ceiling or TV in your living room!  |
0.00
#...
·
·
2
likes
|
|---|
| I have another data point: according to GitHub API, the most-downloaded version of ImPPG so far (that is, the Windows binary package) — v0.6.5 — was pulled by 5099 users. I believe it's used mostly for solar work, and obviously only a fraction of people (who at least dabbled in solar) have used this tool in particular. |
|
3.34
#...
·
|
|---|
| Another data point is that the Astronomical League has 15,000+ members. |
11.37
#...
·
|
|---|
| The FB group “Pixinsight for beginners” has 20k members. I think anyone using or interested in using PI fits our description of an astrophotographer. It hard for me to imagine more than 20% of the APs out there are in that group so my guess would be north of 100K. Probably well north of 100K. |
#...
·
|
|---|
Kevin Morefield: I might be wrong, but I'm not sure if the size of FB groups is any indication. How many are active? For instance, if 10k are not active anymore, but obviously didn't bother to leave the group, that changes things. Consider that the "active astrophotography community" is a moving window: every year some people leave the hobby, while new poeple join it. The other question is: how many are bots or click-farms? This is a huge issue with Facebook/Instagram/Twitter/Reddit/etc. With all these variables, I'd take these estimations (including mine above) with a giant portion of salt. |
12.17
#...
·
|
|---|
You are right, tons of people went into AP and astronomy during COVID lockdown. They had nothing else to do. While it is correct that a lot of people got into AP during COVID, I wonder how many stuck with it. This hobby has a fairly high turnover rate. You look at an astrophoto and are amazed by it and really tell yourself you want to do something like this. Until you actually start to do it and realize that it involves many nights of frustration and troubleshooting especially when just starting out. On occasion, I'll visit the account of some newbie or other who has posted a question on of the forums several months later and find that they have no images. Similarly, someone may join a FB group on astrophotography with intent, but how many follow through long term? |
|
11.37
#...
·
·
2
likes
|
|---|
|
One other interesting question is “why so much growth” these past few years? My answer is ZWO. They moved the market from older well off guys to guys in their 30’s with a half decent job. The same guys that were already using Instagram. And that’s great! |
#...
·
·
2
likes
|
|---|
Kevin Morefield: It's not just AP. Other hobbies too saw a boom during Covid, with an explosion in sales of equipment. I think more people being home from work and freeing up the commute time meant that more people started spending more time on hobbies. |
|
3.87
#...
·
|
|---|
Salvatore Iovene:Kevin Morefield: It's a bit funny, I had my first kid at the very start of Covid and my second in the end of 2021. I got into AP because landscape photography and fishing was taking up to much valuable time when the kids were awake. I had way more free time before Covid and AP was a solution to the time crunch. |
8.95
#...
·
|
|---|
Bill McLaughlin: As of yesterday, there were 10,326,401 astrophotographers in the world. As of today, there are 10, 326, 626.  |
|
5.61
#...
·
|
|---|
Jerry Gerber:Bill McLaughlin: I think you forgot one, my count is 10, 326, 627.... |
