Dark Libaries - how do you organise yours?

[glend (Glen)]

I have been using DSS for a couple of years and have many random date based files which contain lights and darks shot on those dates. What the best way to organise darks and bias/offset files so that they can be easily accessed and reduce the need to continually reshoot them. I am now building up a set of deep cooled darks etc and want to keep those separate from ambient files. Sugestions on organisation?

[troypiggo (Troy)]

All my images are saved in a pictures folder under reverse date order and target name, eg "2015-07-13 dark tower". I have a "Calibration" folder in that base pictures folder, and each camera has directories eg "calibration\qsi583\2015-06-01\darks" for the dates I took the cal frames. The current masters go in the base calibration folder for quicker access eg "calibration\darks_1x1_1800s_40subs _150601.fits" with the masters named so I know exactly what the file was built on and when. Only keep current masters there, and older ones can go in another subfolder if I want to go back and reprocess or something.

[jjz (Joe)]

I use this software: https://sourceforge.net/projects/darkmaster/


JJZ

[peter_4059 (Peter)]

I've got a similar approach to Troy. SGP creates a new folder starting with YYMMDD followed by the object name for each imaging session. If I do multiple objects they all sit under the same YYMMDD folder if they are shot during the same session. The flats are in with the main image files as I typically shoot them during the session. All my calibration files are under a calibration folder with dark and bias subfolders.

The Pixinsight batch pre-processing script allows you to simply point at the main folder and it works out what each file is based on the fits header that SGP writes.

[sil (Steve)]

I have an area on my NAS for ALL my source images, as they come out of the camera. I then have another area where I work using copies, each image I work on I keep a text file including things like equipment used. dates/times, images list etc. If my processing of data to an image generates master dark, flat, bias frames I have a folder just for these to go in. I store with filenames that start with "DARK", then the camera, focal length, ISO, exposure time then datestamp. So that way they naturally group for me to easily find masters to use if i want to reprocess data in the future or am working my way through my back catalogue of photos before I got into astrophotography and find i have later frames taken with same camera/settings combination. Most of my AP is camera /photo based not video sources. Still with videos I've done I end up dumping the frames out and process from there.

[troypiggo (Troy)]

Originally Posted by peter_4059

I've got a similar approach to Troy. SGP creates a new folder starting with YYMMDD followed by the object name for each imaging session. If I do multiple objects they all sit under the same YYMMDD folder if they are shot during the same session. The flats are in with the main image files as I typically shoot them during the session. All my calibration files are under a calibration folder with dark and bias subfolders.

The Pixinsight batch pre-processing script allows you to simply point at the main folder and it works out what each file is based on the fits header that SGP writes.

Yes. The PixInsight BatchPreProcessing script is a wonderful tool. You can actually set up default settings and master dark file locations, then save the process icon. So when you get some new lights and flats, just load and open the saved process icon and you don't even have to find the masters - they're already there!

[wasyoungonce (Brendan)]

There was a program called Darklibrary but I think support has fallen away, now darkmaster is the next thing.

[troypiggo (Troy)]

Certainly looks the goods for DSS.