I have successfully installed and synced my lightning node (Raspiblitz). I see my public ip on port 8333 has 8 conns. However, when I check my node on 1ml.com my node is not found. I did forward port 8333 and 9735 on my router.
Should I connect to a peer or create a channel before my node is visible for the outside?
You need to have a channel. Otherwise there won't be any node announce messages with the gossip protocol. Lightning network explorers can't see you without a node announcement message.
The fact that you need a channel to announce your node is a measure to fight SPAM in the gossip protocol. It is described in BOLT 07. Even if you have a channel it takes some time until your node announcement has propagated through the lightning network and being processed by 1ml. So bring some patience
