Putting astrometry.net indices in custom location

Hello all,
I searched on here but I didn’t find an answer to this question:
Is it possible to change the location of the astrometry.net indices to a custom location? If so how do I do that?

Thank you!

What I did was install an app called HardLinkShellExt. It allows me to create a symbolic link, which allows me to move the index files to another location creating the link at the original location. Just shut down the astronomy.net app, move the files and create the link.

The reason I do this is because the Compute Stick has such limited space and I like to download most of the indexes :wink:

Thank you! That’s exactly why I need a custom location.

I believe this recent post answers your question.

Andy

Thank you Andy,
Yes I saw that one. I think I can make it work. I have all the indices on my thumb drive and was going to copy them to the SD card on my stick PC. I guess if I start the download with the downloader, then tell it to save one index in the desired folder and then manually copy the rest of them to the same folder, that should work, correct? I am trying to not re-download 31 GB of data unless it’s absolutely necessary.

Do you need so many indexes? Just take the one you need for your equipment profile?

For example I currently have 2 lenses but one camera. I’ve determined which lens needs which index file and I’ve saved them on the intel stick. I created two shortcuts on the desktop. One that contains my index files, and the other a shortcut to the ansvr /astronomy/data/ directory.

I’ve made a text file which reminds me which one I need for which lens. Two short cuts to the desktop and I am good to go. I just copy from one to the other.

I do not use multiple index files as ansvr seems much slower if dealing with multiple index files at least on the stick computer.

Good question! Technically I don’t…my OCD tells me that I need the entire catalog :grin:

yes, that will work.

I upload to astrometry.net and see which index it used usually I can then find that index file and use that. Then I right click on a few of my images in SGP and pick “plate solve” to see if it can do them if it does then I am confident it will work out in the field.

I did this recently with my 135mm lens and it worked great.

Note some of the indexes are in the ‘wide field’ catalogue: accessible from the main page, “if you are dealing with wide-field images…” Astrometry.net