FITS Frame Management
Catalog an existing FITS collection or track new NINA captures, without uploading your images
Bring your existing FITS collection into a searchable record, or track new captures live. You can batch-import with the free DeepSkyLog Uploader or the CLI, or connect the NINA plugin. Only metadata is sent to DeepSkyLog. Your FITS files stay on your own storage, so keep your image backups separately.
Getting frames in
- Existing collections: the DeepSkyLog Uploader (Windows, macOS, Linux) and the CLI import FITS metadata from AsiAir, KStars/Ekos, Voyager or NINA. NINA is not required.
- Live NINA sessions: the plugin sends frame metadata while you capture, together with live session telemetry.
- Web import: select FITS files in the Import Data module of the web app, check the groups and assign them to projects.
From each header DeepSkyLog reads the exposure time, filter, temperature, coordinates and other supported values. Web imports and the DeepSkyLog Uploader are free. The CLI and the NINA plugin need a paid account. See the download notes.
For the first import, take one target from one night and select the matching equipment and location. Check the target, filters and metadata in the web app, then import the rest in batches, one batch per equipment and location.
Organizing and analyzing frames
Frames are grouped into sessions by capture time and target. You can filter them by camera, telescope or filter, and look at HFR and the other metrics to judge star quality. The charts can overlay several metrics at once, with a color for each filter, and you can zoom and pan. The session statistics show the total integration time, the number of frames and the progress toward your goals.
DeepSkyLog tracks HFR, FWHM, eccentricity, detected stars and guiding RMS when your software recorded them. What you get depends on the source metadata. The DeepSkyLog Uploader measures star metrics on your computer, so files without them (ASIAIR, for example) still arrive with HFR, FWHM and eccentricity.
Frame quality score
Each frame gets a score from 0 to 100, made from two assessments:
- Relative score: how the frame compares to the best frames in the same session. It uses HFR (40%), guiding RMS (30%), eccentricity (20%) and star count (10%), with baselines per project and per filter.
- Absolute score: whether the frame is usable in itself. FWHM is converted to arcseconds with the pixel scale of your equipment and rated against fixed seeing limits: under 2" excellent, 2-3" good, 3-4" average, over 4" poor.
The final score is the lower of the two, so a frame has to pass both tests. Without this, a night that was uniformly poor would still produce “good” frames, just because all frames were equally bad.
Scores appear in the Session Summary widget, the Project Activity log and the Project Details. The scoring documentation has the details and examples.
The Session Summary widget also warns you when quality drops during a session (clouds, dew, focus drift). It compares consecutive frames with the first-half baseline, and a run of 5 or more degraded frames triggers the warning.