A personal astrophotography catalog and session planning tools for organizing and exploring your celestial images.

Cosmos Collection is designed to help astrophotographers manage their image collections with features tailored specifically for astronomical photography. Keep track of your deep sky objects, planetary shots, and wide-field captures all in one place.

• Image Catalog: Organize your astrophotography images with metadata
• Search & Filter: Find images by object type, date, equipment, or other criteria
• Image Data Management: Track technical details like exposure settings, equipment used, and capture conditions
• DSO Visibility Calculator: Used to determine when DSOs are optimally visible
• Best DSO Tonight: Calculates and displays the best Deep Sky Objects visible from user's location tonight
• DSO Target List: DSO Target management list for planning observing sessions.
• Telescope FOV Simulator: Visualize future astrophotography sessions and what equipment to use.
• Collage Builder: Create collages of your DSO images.
• Image Gallery: View all your images in a gallery view. (With filters)
• Weather Forecast: 7 day weather forecast with astro related scoring. The weather detail window shows hourly forecast per day.

1. Go to the Releases page
2. Download the latest version for your operating system:
   • Windows: CosmosCollection-Windows.zip
   • macOS: CosmosCollection-macOS.zip
   • Linux: CosmosCollection-Linux.zip
3. Extract the downloaded file
4. Run the application executable

Before running Cosmos Collection on Linux, you need to install the required Qt system libraries:

Ubuntu/Debian:

sudo apt-get update
sudo apt-get install libxcb-cursor0

Fedora/RHEL:

sudo dnf install xcb-util-cursor

Arch Linux:

sudo pacman -S xcb-util-cursor

This is a one-time system setup required for Qt 6.5+ applications.

If you prefer to build from source:

• Python 3.x
• Required dependencies (see requirements.txt)
• Linux only: System Qt libraries (see Linux System Requirements above)

1. Clone or download the CosmosCollection project
2. Install dependencies:

   pip install -r requirements.txt
   

3. Run the application:

   python main.py
   

Launch Cosmos Collection and start building your personal astrophotography catalog by importing your images and adding relevant metadata for each capture.

Cosmos Collection supports command line operations for scripting and automation.

Compiled Release: Use the CosmosCollection-CLI executable included in the release:

# Windows
CosmosCollection-CLI.exe --list-dsos

# Linux/macOS
./CosmosCollection-CLI --list-dsos

From Source: Use Python directly:

python main.py --list-dsos

# Basic usage (from source)
python main.py --add-image --dso "M31" --image "/path/to/image.jpg"

# Basic usage (compiled release)
CosmosCollection-CLI --add-image --dso "M31" --image "/path/to/image.jpg"

# With full metadata
python main.py --add-image --dso "NGC 7000" --image "/path/to/image.tif" \
    --equipment "Telescope: AT72ED, Camera: ASI2600" \
    --integration "3600" \
    --date "2024-01-15" \
    --notes "First light!" \
    --set-favorite

Options:

# From source
python main.py --search-dso "M31"

# Compiled release
CosmosCollection-CLI --search-dso "M31"
CosmosCollection-CLI --search-dso "Orion"
CosmosCollection-CLI --search-dso "NGC 70"

# From source
python main.py --list-dsos

# Compiled release
CosmosCollection-CLI --list-dsos

# From source
python main.py --help

# Compiled release
CosmosCollection-CLI --help

This is a personal project for astrophotography organization and session planning tool. This should be viewed as a "rolling release" style project. Feel free to fork and adapt for your own use.

MIT License

Copyright (c) 2025 Cosmos Collection

Permission is hereby granted, free of charge, to any person obtaining a copy of this software and associated documentation files (the "Software"), to deal in the Software without restriction, including without limitation the rights to use, copy, modify, merge, publish, distribute, sublicense, and/or sell copies of the Software, and to permit persons to whom the Software is furnished to do so, subject to the following conditions:

The above copyright notice and this permission notice shall be included in all copies or substantial portions of the Software.

THE SOFTWARE IS PROVIDED "AS IS", WITHOUT WARRANTY OF ANY KIND, EXPRESS OR IMPLIED, INCLUDING BUT NOT LIMITED TO THE WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTABILITY, FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE AND NONINFRINGEMENT. IN NO EVENT SHALL THE AUTHORS OR COPYRIGHT HOLDERS BE LIABLE FOR ANY CLAIM, DAMAGES OR OTHER LIABILITY, WHETHER IN AN ACTION OF CONTRACT, TORT OR OTHERWISE, ARISING FROM, OUT OF OR IN CONNECTION WITH THE SOFTWARE OR THE USE OR OTHER DEALINGS IN THE SOFTWARE.