# Project: astrophotography

> The anchor document. A session that reads only this, TODO.md and DECISIONS.md should
> understand what the project is and what to do next. Keep it current.

## Objective

Take astronomical images, process them properly, and understand what is in them.
Three strands, all in this repository since the 2026-07-21 merge of the
`itelescope` and `astro-pipeline` repositories:

1. **Remote imaging** (`itelescope/`) - a review of the iTelescope.net network
   and which scope to book for a given target. The active objective is the drain
   campaign (`itelescope/CAMPAIGN.md`): spend the account's remaining points on
   southern-sky imaging by 10 Aug 2026, download all data, then cancel before the
   12 Aug renewal. **Cancellation needs explicit user confirmation on the day.**
2. **Processing and analysis** (`pipeline/`) - the code that turns frames into
   calibrated, plate-solved images and into measurements. Proven on the NGC 5128
   session of 2026-07-21; being productionised into a staged, containerised
   pipeline that can run under a scheduler.
3. **Observing in person** (`observing/`) - currently the total solar eclipse of
   12 Aug 2026, seen from Menorca.

## Scope

- In scope: the telescope network reference; booking and running remote sessions;
  calibration, stacking, plate solving, rendering and analysis code; observing
  plans for trips.
- Out of scope: the image data itself. Sessions stay on disk and are located
  through `ASTRO_SESSION`; a single frame is 61 MB and a session is several GB.
  Each session directory carries its own METHODS.md.
- Previously out of scope, now central: automating bookings and image
  processing. Both proved necessary and both are done.

## Audience

Laurence, when planning or processing imaging runs, and anyone else choosing a
telescope on the network or wanting to reproduce a result.

## Description

iTelescope.net operates remote telescopes across six observatories (Utah, Sierra
California, Siding Spring Australia, Deep Sky Chile, AstroCamp Spain, e-EyE Spain).
Public specs are scattered across a Freshdesk support article and a maintained Google
Sheet. This repo snapshots that data and turns it into a usable review: per-telescope
assessments plus a "which scope for what" guide.

## Success criteria

- Every active telescope on the network has an entry with specs and an assessment.
- A reader can pick the right scope for widefield, deep space, galaxies, photometry,
  or free imaging without visiting the source pages.

## Key facts

- Trunk branch: main
- Forge / remote: https://git.discworld.casa/laurence/astrophotography
  (merged 2026-07-21 from `itelescope` + `astro-pipeline`; both histories intact)
- Runtime / stack: markdown for the reference and campaign; Python 3.12 for the
  pipeline (numpy, scipy, astropy, scikit-image, sep, astroalign, photutils,
  astroquery, matplotlib)
- How to run it: read `itelescope/TELESCOPES.md` to choose a scope; set
  `ASTRO_SESSION` and run `pipeline/*.py` to process a session
- Image data is NOT in this repo: it lives on disk per session, each with its
  own METHODS.md