laurence
59d6e30712
The mechanical merge preserved both histories but left two repositories sitting side by side rather than one repository. This is the part that makes it whole. A top-level README explains the three strands - the telescope network and campaign, the processing code, and in-person observing plans - and says plainly that image data does not live here, because that is the first question anyone will have when they find a pipeline with no pixels. state/PROJECT.md was still describing a markdown-only reference project whose scope explicitly EXCLUDED automating bookings and image processing. Both of those are now most of what the project does, so the objective, scope and key facts are rewritten to match reality. state/DECISIONS.md records why the merge happened - the two repos were split by chronology rather than design, and the seam was already leaking, with the campaign's TODO citing results held in the other repo and the pipeline's README explaining a campaign it did not contain. It also records that the image data deliberately stays out of the repository. state/TODO.md gains the pipeline and observing work that previously had nowhere to live, including the measurement that changes the pipeline plan: per-frame processing is 2.9 seconds and the whole 24-frame session is 1.1 minutes single-threaded, so a scheduler earns nothing on stacking and should be pointed at the Monte Carlo stages instead. Internal links fixed for the new paths: pipeline/README.md referred to session-scripts/ throughout, and itelescope/README.md pointed at a state/ directory that is now one level up. The .gitignore conflict between the two repositories is resolved by combining them, with image formats ignored globally except under docs/, where documentation figures are committed deliberately.
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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: 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).