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Fundamentals/QuickStart/File Organization video question.

John McKay
in PixInsight
Adam,
In the above titled video, you mention that you keep your raw calibration files along with the masters that you create but you don't really explain the reasoning behind that. Can you please explain for what reason you would need to go back to the individual raw calibration files once you have the masters? That's an awful lot of extra hard drive space to take up.

Thanks ~ 
Loving the course so far!

Comments

  • BlockHeadBlockHead
    John,

    Well... as an instructor having the raw files is a must if I ever want to make a video tutorial on it. :)

    But that isn't the answer you want. I have found from experience that with new processes and techniques that having the raw data- especially the calibration files, is useful. Once you create the masters- you cannot see if there were issues in the original calibration data. The calibration files are the most important thing! Without them, you cannot create past images from raw data (can't take new ones to solve the problem is the data is old).

    As an example... a good one, it used to be I would process and create my master calibration files in CCDStack... guess what happened? Pixinsight came around and it does not play well with data generated by other programs (without doing some fancy math) because of the 0 to 1 convention in PixInsight. But... guess what... I saved the original raw calibration files...and I am able to incorporate old data with new data within PixInsight by recreating new master calibration files. 

    Really the raw calibration files are not a big deal.The question about saving the intermediate files that PixInsight generates (calibrated, registered...etc etc)... THOSE take up space. However, I have decided that Hard drives are "cheap" so... I am just keeping everything, and if I need anything it is all there for me.

    -the Blockhead
  • John McKay
    Thanks Adam.
    That's kinda what I figured but wasn't sure. Yes, hard drive space is cheap now but still not free.
    As someone that has never and never plans to really go back and re-process old data, (Because my imaging gear and technique is always improving.) I think I'll stick to what I've been doing which is to dump the old raw files after a few months, not right away, and just keep my master calibration files.
    Maybe now that I'm getting used to P.I., thanks to you, I'll change my mind going forward.
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