Starship Asterisk*

Thank you very much for your interest in Astronomy Picture of the Day (APOD). We very much appreciate the time you have given us viewing our images and reading the explanations; your dedication drives us to keep doing the site. APOD will likely be asking other questions in the near future; your responses will help us better understand viewers like you, and will allow us to improve what we do for you.

Please select the answer that best reflects when you first started following APOD regularly, assuming that you do. Please leave any comments you may have on this topic below.

Thank you!

Had to put my guess at between 5 to 10 years. I'm sure I visited it many times over 10 years ago before actively following it.

I find most of these APOD poll questions ambiguous, because I'm one of the few people (8 out of nearly 1600 -- as I learned from the second-last poll) who doesn't access APOD directly. I think I originally found my way to the Asterisk from an APOD, but once I got here, I've always seen the APODs from their daily Asterisk posting. So do I "follow" APOD in the sense you mean in this poll?

Rob

I think if you regularly view APOD, regardless of the method, whether it be directly from APOD or from Asterisk, Google+, Facebook, or any other source, you can be counted as "following" APOD.

For the past few months I've been making a point of looking at AOD before I go to bed. No matter what kind of day it's been, there's nothing like the vastness of space and everything therein to put it all in perspective--kind of a Goodnight Moon--but for adults! Many thanks and may you all prosper wildly! XO

I have been watching APOD since its inception because I have a cousin who worked on making it a go. Thank you.

I work nights. When I get home, the first things I do after a shower and snack, is (1) check primary email, (2) check secondary email, (3) check APOD (often get sidetracked to somewhere in the web), and (4) check Google News. Every weeknight. During weekends, this process is followed several times a day!

Thanks APOD! I love you and, apparently, so do thousands of others!

I got my first computer in 1996. The first page I went to was one I had just heard about, with a name like "Horrible Things Dogs Have Eaten." The second was NASA.gov. This had a link on the home page to a new item, the Astronomy Picture of the Day. I liked it so much I made it my home page. I have checked Astronomy Picture of the Day every day since.

I visit daily. On a philosophical note, not only do I find the whole topic fascinating and exciting, the sheer vastness of space and all it contains can help put everyday problems into perspective. They're pretty insignificant in grand scheme of things!

It's great to follow A P O D. I try not to miss it daily. I like both photography and explanation. Thanks for the service

Wow has it been more than 10yrs? I guess so.

The Internet was made for APOD and Astronomy in general. I was thrilled to download almost real time images of Shoemaker-Levy 9 impacting Jupiter and then post them on our BBS and show them to just about anybody I could corner. The power of this medium to bring such images into our homes is almost as awe inspiring as the images themselves. I have been fortunate to view APOD Images that provoke the deepest philosophical questions while answering basic questions such as what's out there have been for many years and I just wanted to take this chance to say Thank you. It is a service that does humanity good.

Guest wrote:Wow has it been more than 10yrs? I guess so.

The Internet was made for APOD and Astronomy in general. I was thrilled to download almost real time images of Shoemaker-Levy 9 impacting Jupiter and then post them on our BBS and show them to just about anybody I could corner. The power of this medium to bring such images into our homes is almost as awe inspiring as the images themselves. I have been fortunate to view APOD Images that provoke the deepest philosophical questions while answering basic questions such as what's out there have been for many years and I just wanted to take this chance to say Thank you. It is a service that does humanity good.

Yeah, what I said.

Hard to tell when I started, as you've set the RSS feed to delete posts after a certain amount of time. I have circumvented that behavior by having the APOD posts drop into a smart folder in my Mac Mail program.

My first venture into APOD was on June 16, 1995. I have checked it and saved the link every day since then. I delight in losing myself in the vastness of space and my imagination goes wild trying to think of the possibilities of other worlds that may be out there that support life as Earth does. I also derive a sense of satisfaction when I am able to tell friends and family about APOD and provide the link for them to enjoy. Thank you and I hope you are able to continue this wonderful service to mankind for many, many years to come.

On occasion I cannot access APOD, presumably due to traffic. I always panic and fear the worst and begin mourning your demise. Whan I can again access you, I feel like offering a sacrifice to some deity or other. Thank you for many years of wonderment.

APOD is my home page. I get a big kick out of seeing what's out there, and it puts a proper perspective on our place as humans in the scale of things in general.

I download the linked image every day and have the images set to be my screen saver - with two screens running I get an endless variety of killer content that leads to some really great discussions in the office, or during meetings. I particularly love it when it happens on the projector - "oh look, Dust Devils on Mars".

I really enjoy the use of hyperlinks in the descriptive text, which provides a (sometimes humorous) context to whatever is on offer for the day.

At some point I'd like to scrape the APOD site and recombine the images with their original text in a database, as the same objects are often covered in very different ways.

It's a great service. Thank you.

apod has been my home page more than 5 years. gsd680pp8ev0sjkci[wf--- thanks

I have been a daily viewer since dec, 2002.but have gone back to the beginning, and have seen every entry. Keep up the wonderful work.

I've been a viewer for so long that I can't remember having a computer and not looking at APOD regularly.
I remember sometime round about 2000 I wrote a little "thankyou" note to Robert and Jerry for the enjoyment and enlightenment they had given to so many people and was thrilled to receive not an automated reply but a separate acknowledgement from each of them!
Thanks also to the present team!

THANK YOU! Enjoy especially the pictures of the planets with their rings and satellites. Why are so many, if not all, satellites in the same plane? Much I don't understand, but that doesn't stop me from enjoying and appreciating the picture. I may not check daily, but I do catch up on all. Staggers my imagination, what is out there. THANKS again.

Thank you for the constant inspiring flow of images. I try and view APOD first thing and then check the earthquake maps at http://earthquake.usgs.gov/earthquakes/recenteqsww/ It tends to put life into perspective and makes the daily challenges appear very small.

I have been a more or less 'first thing on booting up' APOD fan since early 2000,having learned of the daily wonder pic through my brother, the late Gavin Houston, himself a keen and able amateur astronomer. We built our first telescope together when were pre-teen school kids and I remember seeing the rings of Saturn on a lovely cold night from the front lawn of our home outside Glasgow (we are/were, though Welsh by birthplace and family!) when we tried it out. He is gone these past six years, went silently and surprisingly for the big EVA in his sleep, and now APOD is always my 'home page' in his memory, so Houston can stay up to date! -- DNH (Dr).

Almost daily viewing. Scientific explanations appreciated. Wonder still afire in an older man.

I had to look at the archive to figure out how long it's been, but I have followed APOD for almost 14 years!
I used to save every pic on my hard drive, and then download them to 3-1/2" floppys to save them cause it used to take so long to download them with dialup. At some point I realized I didn't have to do that any more, because the site appeared to be around to stay! (and I got broadband internet)

I may not go to APOD every day, but when I do, I usually look back at the picture posts I missed. Great job people! I'll keep checking in as long as you keep posting!

Clear Skies!

Hello All,

Over the years, it has always been a pleasure to see APOD pictures and read the explanations. Amateur Astronomy is an old but neglected hobby of mine. Light pollution prevents me from observing as much as I would like, but, your pictures are a welcome substitute. APOD pictures are so well processed, I wish I could do the same at home. Keep up the good work and my best wishes to all contributors. I hope to keep visiting your website for as long as I am able and for as long as you keep posting.

Bangalore
India