Concepts
This is the map. The rest of the guide leans on five words NightScribe repeats on every screen: project, visit, run, series and report. They are nested, one inside the next, and knowing which is which is what makes the buttons predictable. Read this chapter once; the others will land on solid ground.
The hierarchy at a glance
project (one object you follow)
└── visit (one observing night, with a date and an optional name)
├── astrometry run -> MPC report
└── photometry series -> CSV / AAVSO report, light curve
report / export: what leaves the app| Word | What it is | What hangs from it |
|---|---|---|
| Project | One object you follow | Its folder, its visits, its light curve, its outcome |
| Visit | One observing night on that project | The night's plates and everything the night produced |
| Astrometry run | One track & stack pass over a visit's frames | Its measured points, its stacks, its MPC report, its undo |
| Photometry series | The frame-by-frame measurement of a visit | The visit's curve and, joined with the other visits, the project's light curve |
| Report / export | What leaves the app | MPC report, CSV and AAVSO report, annotated FITS, charts, posts |
Why a hierarchy and not a pile of files? Because an observing project is a story in time, not a folder: the same object is visited night after night, each night produces its own plates and its own measurements, and the result is the union of all of them. The hierarchy is what lets the app rebuild the story (which night, which pass, which curve) without you remembering filenames.
Project
A project is one object you follow, with its own folder, its visits, its measurements and its outcome. Everything you do with that object (captures, light curve, reports, posts) hangs from the project, so weeks later you pick it up without rebuilding anything. Chapter 03. Projects creates them; here it is enough to know that the project is the widest box.
Visit
A visit is one observing night on that project. Everything the night produced hangs from the visit: the FITS plates, the imported photometry, the ephemerides, the reports, the charts, the notes. Keeping the night as its own box is what lets the app show you "what came out of a given night" without you sorting files by hand.
A visit has a date, which is its folder and its sort key, and, since 2026-10-16, an optional name of its own. The date is still the identity; the name is for the observer. It is useful when you work the same project twice in one day, or when a session runs past midnight and the calendar date is not what you would call that night.
Astrometry run
An astrometry run is one execution of track & stack over a visit's frames. It has its own measured points, its own stack files, its report and its undo, so a run is a self-contained result and not a scratch pad.
A visit can hold several runs: several passes in one night, each with its own stack. The visit's own Measure the position… button opens the last one, so the common case is one click. When the visit already holds a run, opening that run shows its MPC report already rebuilt from its measurements (2026-10-16): you reopen a night to send it, not to measure it again. Chapter 07. Astrometry has the details.
Photometry series
The photometry series is the equivalent for objects that vary. Measure the sequence measures the whole visit's frames frame by frame, with a zero point per frame, quality flags and an undo by run. The series becomes the visit's curve and, joined with the other visits, the project's light curve. Chapter 06. Photometry has the details.
Report and export
A report or export is what leaves the app: the MPC report of a run, the CSV and AAVSO report of a series, the annotated FITS, the charts and the posts. Nothing leaves on its own; each one is a deliberate gesture, and the app shows you the figure or the text before it goes. Chapter 08. Reporting it covers the last of them.
Inside a project: the folders
Two housekeeping folders live inside a project, and they exist to keep the disk honest:
prcd/: the frames of a successful run, moved aside to give disk back. They are never deleted and you can bring them back whenever you want. It used to be calledprocesados/; renamed on 2026-10-16.dscrd/: the frames you take out of a night. Moving a frame there is a real move, and the registry follows it, so nothing is lost. It used to be calleddescartados/; renamed on 2026-10-16.
The master calibration library
Calibration uses a master library that is indexed, not copied (chapter 05. Capture): you point at your master FITS files and the app reads from their headers what makes them valid (camera, gain, temperature, exposure, filter). The ownership rule is simple: a master belongs to a project, but the reusable ones (bias, flat) can be shared with every project, and another project's master can be used without copying it. So one good flat serves the whole observatory.
The unified FITS editor
The FITS editor (Tools → NightScribe Image Workbench) is the single door to all FITS work. Photometry and Astrometry are its tabs, and Blink, Calibration and Annotate open as windows over the same plate, with the same zoom and stretch. Opening it from a visit already carries that visit's frames. A plate that carries astrometry opens north-up by default, the way charts and acquisition screens show the sky; the Settings switch can turn that off.
Where to go next
The five words open the rest of the guide:
03. Projects: the project in full, from the card to publication.
05. Capture: the visit's frames and the master library.
06. Photometry: the series, the light curve and periods.
07. Astrometry: the run, the stack and the MPC report.
08. Reporting it: the posts and the charts.
13. Understanding an object: what each type and each figure means. The taxonomies and the magnitudes are explained once, in the object card; no chapter repeats them.
Next: 01. First steps.