Keeping light frames!!

[myk68]

Hi All

So I have got to the position where I have light frames all over.  Now other than sorting them out and re-foldering them to make sense.   I thought 'Do I need to keep them'??  I am also running out of storage space that I can work them on.

Now I am meaning after I have gone through the process in pixinsight of checking them. correcting them. debayering. aligning and finally stacking them.

If I have an 'untouched' stacked image, Do I still need the original lights for if I take more and want to add to the stack??  can I just work the new images and add the new stacked image to the previous one and have say 2 45 minute stacks that now make 1 hour 30?

Am I missing something that screams NO DONT DO IT.  Or is there no real issue??

Cheers for any comments

Mike

[DaveS]

Storage is cheap.

I would never bin my light frames, unless they were obviously unusable.

[scotty38]

Agreed, keep the lights and get rid of all the other intermediate files, debayered, calibrated, registered etc. 

[carastro]

I generally keep everything on a back up disc.  No point in keeping the lights without the calibration files though.  I must admit though I rarely actually use the original subs only the stacked files I sometimes re-process if I think I can do better at a later date or use them to combine with newer data.  

Funnily enough I wanted an old DSLR sub only yesterday to show the difference between cooled and uncooled for an Imaging Presentation I am doing, it appears I have actually chucked away all my very old subs (10 years old) and all I could find was 1 single Rosette sub already being used for a different bit of demonstration.  

So thinking about it, you only really need to keep the unprocessed stacks.

Carole 

 

 

Edited August 27, 2022 by carastro

[tomato]

I briefly considered deleting my raw data after it had been successfully calibrated and stacked, but after thinking about the effort that went into acquiring them, plus the ever evolving data processing software, meaning  it could be revisited in the future, I decided buying some more data storage was a worthwhile option.

[myk68]

Thank you all for your points.

Looks like I'm getting more storage.     But only for the light subs, I agree, throw the processing files and keep the original subs and the 'fresh' stacked image.

To be fair the processing files take most of the room anyway.

Clear skies all

Mike

[scotty38]

6 hours ago, carastro said:

 No point in keeping the lights without the calibration files though. 

 

Agreed and I should have been clearer in my statement. I did say get rid of intermediate files blah blah but of course you'd need to keep any necessary calibration files of course.

[ollypenrice]

We get so many subs here that it would be bonkers to save them all. I save calibrated stacks. (Our internet means saving to the cloud would require a time machine.)  However, I routinely add new material to old. 'Stacking stacks' is not, mathematically, the best way to go but I find it very effective, none the less.

The arrival of the CMOS camera, with small pixels and a preference for more and shorter subs,  means even more storage. If you have it, fine - but, as Carole says, save the relevant calibration files. I will continue to save calibrated stacks.

Olly