Picastro is a new astrophotography-focused smartphone app / social media platform launched in late-2024 that labels itself “Instagram for space nerds”.
Skies & Scopes readers can save 10% on Picastro subscriptions using the code “SKIESANDTEL10”.
Check out the interview below with its founder, Tom McCrorie, to understand more.
“You don’t need to worry about cheating an algorithm or playing the system – there are no pressures to play the social media game on Picastro”
What is Picastro and why should people use it?
Picastro is a dedicated social media app for iOS and Android to empower astronerds to share their high resolution images of space.
It’s like Instagram for SpaceNerds, but without the horrible side of social media.
I had been using social media for a few years to share my astronomy and astrophotography journey, and I always heard and seen people saying the same thing about platforms like Instagram — their hard fought photos were being crushed by compression methods and these platforms only cared about serving ads to sell us stuff.
Every day was, and is, a constant battle with adverts, fake accounts, bots and spammy stuff.
All we want to do is admire and share our amazing images of space with people who only want to see amazing images of space.
And, more recently, it has started to get progressively worse, with the explosion of AI being used to generate fake images of deep sky objects pretending to be real.
The problem being that the average person who isn’t used to seeing real images of space, thinks that these AI generated images are real.
(Editor’s note: this also leads to scepticism of genuine astrophotography images and we get a lot of negative comments on great images on our Facebook page).
How did you come to create it?
I decided that it was time to create a dedicated app for sharing astrophotography images.
I wanted a platform that allowed beginners and people like me to share their images, distraction free, wrapped up in a beautifully simple and user-friendly experience and in the original size and resolution that those images were saved in.
As a community we can then share and learn from each other in a safe place.
Picastro is a play on the words Picasso and Astro as one of the defining things that makes the community different is the creativity that each image has.
Sure, there are a few other places available to post astronomical images, but none of these are focused on a beautifully simple, easy to use dedicated native app only for astro.
Don’t get me wrong, I use some of these other platforms too, but those other platforms are not mobile-friendly and they certainly didn’t have a dedicated app available to me.
For someone like me at the start of my journey of taking space images, I needed a simple, easy to use place to share my astronomy journey, and it didn’t exist… until now.
So, in 2022, I set about planning and designing a dedicated app for space images and content — to give all of us astronerds a place to share our own journey to the cosmos and beyond, no matter what stage of our cosmic adventure.
I started in stealth mode, planned and designed some prototypes, tested the UX and UI with a group of users who would be using it the most, and it was overwhelmingly received with open arms and positivity. What a relief that was!
“(Social media) has started to get progressively worse, with the explosion of AI being used to generate fake images of deep sky objects pretending to be real.”
I made the decision to start on the road to building this dedicated app for spacenerds and bring it to everyone. It was a tough task, that’s for sure. Lots of learning and lots of mistakes.
By 2024 I had a small team in place and we were working to make this the best space app possible.
By September 2024 it was ready for launch, fully bug tested, alpha and beta tested and raring to go!
How is it different from platforms like Instagram or Astrobin?
Picastro is a very different platform to Astrobin or Instagram.
First Astrobin is quite complex to use for beginners with lots of advanced features. It is aimed at experts and is marketed as a storage repository for high resolution images, with a little bit of emphasis placed on the social side.
“All we want to do is admire and share our amazing images of space with people who only want to see amazing images of space.”
Picastro is fairly and squarely aimed at beginners as well as experts and plays heavy on the social side of astrophotgraphy. A lot of users using Picastro tell me Picastro is much easier to use compared to Astrobin.
There are a few ways to upload hi res uncompressed images on Picastro:
- Simply an image, title and description
- An image and some basic astronomy details
- A full “Star Card” containing as much astronomical and gear detail as you like – filters, camera type filters, telescope type, etc.
The key standout points of Picastro are:
- Ease of use
- Beautiful simplicity
- A positive community
- No algorithms ruining the platform
- NO adverts, NO bots, NO fake accounts and NO spam
In contrast to Instagram, you don’t need to worry about cheating an algorithm or playing a system to try and hack the platform to appear at the top of a feed. There are no pressures to play that social media game on Picastro.
For example the Image of the Week and Image of the Month are voted for by the whole community, so there are no gatekeepers.
Everyone has a chance of getting an image of the month or week. Its a true social media platform.
The majority of people that use it are total beginners. They share their images and learn from the experts on the platform who pass on their knowledge and experience in a non judgemental way.
Picastro also has a very clear price structure, use it for FREE or sign up to a paid plan (a bit like Astrobin).
Find out more
Remember, you can save 10% on Picastro subscriptions using the code “SKIESANDTEL10”.
Thanks so much for the article, Anthony.
You’re welcome, mate.