Organising files

[Luke.]

What does everyone use to organise their files and folders in Windows? I have only completed a few images and my folder is looking quite messy with all of the different targets and their subs.
Do you just have really well sorted folders or is there any software out there that is better?
Any tips and screenshots of what you have would be great

[Atmos (Colin)]

When I use MaximDL for image capture I have saved sequences. if I have a sequence for M8 I have a folder for that object. When it is imaging M8 it saves it into that folder. If I move onto another target, I change folders so it just keeps on saving into each objects folder. Everything eventually ends up on my external HD as I only have 250GB on my computer (MacBook Pro 15"). I don't have a desktop.

[luka]

Colin, how do you deal with dark/flat files? For example, if I image several targets in one night they would (possibly) all share the same darks/flats. Keeping sequence for targets would end up in data duplication.

[sil (Steve)]

I keep ALL source files on my NAS according to camera (got plenty), I make copies of sets for processing then ONLY keep the Final integrated (plate solved )FITS files and master Dark/Flat/Bias, that way I have the integrated files i can process from and make jpegs and the datestamp is all i need to go back to my source files if i want to reprocess again later with say new software, its no big deal to dig out the flat, dark, etc frames for me. It ensures I have a complete set of data always if i never touch my source files, just work with copies. Video can get large and some I've deleted when learning that i later realised i could have pulled out good shots from. I've got no problem with drive space for the foreseeable future so maybe if i get pressed to maybe delete video captures to free up space I'd run them through PIPP first and save out the best quality BMP frames as an alternate source.

What I'd love is an astrophotography processing prog that could index all my source FITS files and since they're plate solved have a search to tell me what images I have with a target I'm looking for in my shots and maybe use all my shots to stitch together a skymap/ milky way shot from the best of what i have.