Pixinsight - which files are useful to keep?

[Type1Turkey]

I'm testing Pixinsight on a 45 day free trial (loving it!). I use a William Optics Z73 with a 533MC Pro on an HEQ5 Pro mount with guiding and controlled via ASIair Plus. For each target/session I take lights, flats & dark flats. I have a separate recently made library for darks as described by others on SGL. I have sorted my file storage again as per great advice found on here.

My question is that when I stack a target with WBPP and then continue to process the image, I'm left with what I think are a load of files I won't necessarily need to keep in the future, should I return to the target to gain more data.

Would anybody be able to offer any advice? 

Edited April 29 by Type1Turkey
mistake

[Ouroboros]

I am by no means an authority on this.  I asked myself the same question and decided to keep the original lights, flats and dark flats and master files. I delete all the intermediate files. I can always regenerate them if need be. I use a master dark from my darks library.  I keep the log files too. 

Arguably it’s not necessary to keep the flats and dark flats either, as long as the masters look OK. 

[Type1Turkey]

49 minutes ago, Ouroboros said:

I am by no means an authority on this.  I asked myself the same question and decided to keep the original lights, flats and dark flats and master files. I delete all the intermediate files. I can always regenerate them if need be. I use a master dark from my darks library.  I keep the log files too. 

Arguably it’s not necessary to keep the flats and dark flats either, as long as the masters look OK. 

Thx for that. I have done some googling, looked on Pixinsight forums and your method sounds spot on for me 🙂

[Hughsie]

When I store my data for the future after using WBPP I generate the following folders;

• The original data from across one or more nights excluding flats, dark flats and darks.
• A folder called Final Images in which I keep an XISF and JPEG version of the final processed image and any annotated images.
• Lastly a folder called Master Lights & Calibration Frames in which I keep the post calibrated and integrated light frames pre-processing plus the Master Flat and Master Dark generated by WBPP.

Although I have a darks library which I update once a year, I keep the original master dark used in calibration for the current imaging session in case the camera sensor changes over time. Like Ouroboros, I will only delete the individual flats and dark flats subs once I am satisfied the Master Flat has calibrated the lights properly.