Data Access & Naming: Praise & Suggestions

Finally got some data with the new system.

(1) Nice to see that the dataset can download as a single tidy zipfile now; whereas on the old FTP system, you got dozens of individual “calibrated-image.fit.zip” files.

OTOH, you now have to wait until the end of the session, to assess any FITS file:

…the “most recent image” JPG gives a decent preview, so it’s a welcome addition to the interface, but it cannot convey the whole dynamic range & resolution, or the effects of different intensity scalings.

===> So how about releasing only the first FITS file to “My Data” - as soon as it is generated? That’s enough for us to judge whether the data (exposure) is OK to continue, or to kill the run and relaunch the plan with better settings.

(2) Another plus: my chosen observing plan name [Ceph_Nebs_T80_Halpha] is the first part of the zipfile name and hence the extracted folder name; whereas on the old FTP system, all you got for the folder was the official name needed to identify the target for pointing the telescope to, which in this case would be the boring HD-catalog star lying midway between the two nebulae I wanted to capture in the same FOV. [Now the images still get that boring name, but at least the folder containing them does not].

But why is the rest of the name a long string of random characters? -

Ceph_Nebs_T80_Halpha-01a15bc3-f522-7218-8103-ae8080515d98[.zip]

===> A date-timestamp appended string would be much more useful than 37 characters of gibberish. It could be taken from the first image in the set: “20261021-0217”