# Decisions > A dated, append only log of decisions and their rationale. Newest at the top. Never > rewrite past entries; if a decision is reversed, add a new entry that says so. ## 2026-07-21: the pipeline reads headers, not filenames The first pipeline parsed `calibrated-T32-...-Luminance-BIN2-W-300-001.fit` to learn a frame's filter, binning and exposure. That works for one telescope, one binning and one exposure length. Three of the four archived sessions have no luminance channel at all and one is from 2021 with different naming, so the approach could not survive contact with the archive. FITS headers carry FILTER, EXPTIME, XBINNING, OBJECT and DATE-OBS precisely so software does not have to guess, and iTelescope fills them in properly. The pipeline opens each frame and asks. Filter aliases are mapped, so H-alpha, Halpha and HA all resolve to Ha. The colour scheme is then derived from what is present rather than assumed: LRGB, RGB without luminance, SHO, HOO, or mono. That is what lets one command handle a galaxy in LRGB and a nebula in narrowband without being told which is which. ## 2026-07-21: push-button imaging, hand-driven science The imaging half - unzip, measure, register, stack, plate solve, compose - is mechanical and should run unattended on any session. The analyses are not: a globular cluster survey suits an elliptical galaxy and is meaningless for an emission nebula, and much of the value in the NGC 5128 work came from noticing when a result was wrong rather than from running the code. So the pipeline is being built to be push-button, and the science stays step by step. ## 2026-07-21: merge itelescope and astro-pipeline into one repository The two were split by accident of chronology rather than by design. `itelescope` began as a reference to the telescope network and grew into the campaign that books and runs sessions; `astro-pipeline` was created three hours before this merge to hold the processing code once it was moved out of the image directory. They describe two halves of one activity, and the seam was already leaking: the campaign's TODO referred to processing results held in the other repo, and the processing code's README explained a campaign it did not contain. Merged with **both histories preserved**, by relocating each repository's files into a subdirectory in its own history first and then merging the unrelated histories. 44 commits, and `git log --follow` still traces a file across the move. Layout: `itelescope/` for the network and campaign, `pipeline/` for the code, `observing/` for in-person plans, with the Default Workflow files (CLAUDE.md, docs/, state/) at the top level governing the whole repository. **The old repositories are not deleted.** The drain campaign is live until 10 Aug with sessions running most nights, and other sessions may be working in `itelescope` at the moment of the merge. Both carry a notice pointing here. Archive them once the campaign closes, not before. ## 2026-07-21: image data does not live in the repository A single calibrated frame is 61 MB and a session runs to several gigabytes. Sessions stay on disk, organised into named subdirectories, and the code finds them through the `ASTRO_SESSION` environment variable. Each session carries its own `METHODS.md` describing what was done and what was found, so the account of the data travels with the data while the code travels separately. ## 2026-07-17: follow the Google Sheet, not the support article The support article (https://support.itelescope.net/support/solutions/articles/247371) and the maintained Google Sheet (https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1jZWkkjewOuyNC9YzQ8y2d0pO1e4T7EBeysmQMPBVSOk/) disagree: the article lists T9, T19, T31, T69, which the sheet omits; the sheet has T25, T26, T59, T71-T75, T80, which the article lacks. The article itself points to the sheet as the current source, so the review follows the sheet and notes the discrepancy. The sheet CSV export is snapshotted in data/ so the review's numbers remain reproducible even if the sheet changes. ## 2026-07-17: single review document, not per-telescope files 23 active scopes each need only a spec block and a short assessment; one TELESCOPES.md grouped by observatory reads better and is easier to keep current than 23 stub files. Revisit if per-scope content grows (photos, session logs). ## 2026-07-17: no launchpad scraping https://go.itelescope.net/ is an authenticated app shell with no public data. All content comes from public support pages and the public sheet; nothing in this repo requires iTelescope credentials. Per-telescope detail pages, if ever needed: support.itelescope.net/support/solutions/articles/231901-231920 (older scopes), 245471 (T68), 251171 (T70), 251556 (T69), 251589 (T19).