I imported over 19,000 images without any issues. I especially like the tagging feature. All of my images were automatically tagged with objects within each frame, and it’s easy to use the tag navigator to explore other images with similar tags. Pixinsight can annotate images to label objects, but Observatory does this automatically, so each image that you open is automatically annotated, which is very useful. I also like the fact that I can click on any star or object in the image to get details on that star, with options to search online databases to get more information. My favorite feature is the observatory persona, where I can search 13 different online image archives, including Hubble images. If my image is plate solved, this search automatically finds online archives at the same coordinates. There are many other interesting and useful features I haven’t mentioned. It’s obvious that the programmer has evolved this software over many years to make it as useful as possible to those of us with thousands of images. Support is also fantastic. My questions have been answered quickly and thoroughly. I highly recommend this app.

I have been using Observatory for over two years, I think since its first release and it has gotten better and more responsive with each update. It is a perfect app to organize all your personally taken images. You can also search for images from multiple online catalogs like the DDS, SDSS, 2MASS ... Five thumbs up!

This is excellent software. Photo editing and organization with plate solving. The one thinng that would make it better is if you could plate solve without having to download 10GB of database files

What do you do with the organized or unorganized chaos of your astrophotography library of images as you continue to add to it over time? I end up with dozens and dozens of folders within folders sorted by date and object. Well, Observatory has shown that there’s a better way. After importing your images (which is just a reference to your files on your drive, so very litle addition space is required) you can plate solve them for automatic tagging by all the known astronomical databases. The benefit of this is that any object you’ve purposely captured, or objects you inadvertently captured are tagged in your images. You can then create smart folders, which then subdivide your set of images into nice little categories like galaxies, nebulas, planetary nebulas, etc. Additionally you can batch tag your images with equipemnt you used, and also have those same images flow into smart folders for sets of equipment you used. The benefit being that you might have imaged a smaller galaxy or object with a wide FOV set of equipemnt, and you want to revisit that object with a narrow FOV set of equipment. This could really help in planning your imaging sessions going forward. And if you’re a completionist like I am, and intend to image the whole Messier catalog, this is a great way to keep track of that.There are some light weight stacking, and calibration features that work well for one shot color cameras, which take folders of hundreds of images and display them in a single stack to mitigate the clutter. I would like to see some way to integrate mono channels into single stacks by selecting each channel and assigning it a color. Additionally, a small, but powerful feature of adding astronomical image types to quicklook is amazingly beneficial. No more loading images to see what they are, when you can select one in the finder and press the space bar to see it instantly.Some things I’d like to see come to a future version are better management of equipment, since this is only done through tagging right now. But I would like some place to store equipment I own, so it’s easier to select when tagging images. I’d also like to see FOV overlays of my equipment on some of research portions of the data. It would be great to pull up a hubble image and see how my gear could frame it, and what might be the best possible set of gear to use when planning a session on a particular object. Other information like object rise and set time based on my location would be beneficial for planning sessions.In all though, this is a great v1 of a cataloging application for astronomical images. I look forward to what v2 can bring.

I purchased Observatory last October hoping to be able to use it on my 6-year-old MacBook Pro to process deep sky astrophotos from my Canon EOS 60 Da. After much fiddling around, it was clear that the program was buggy and would not properly align and stack properly, if at all. I contacted the developer by email and he responded quickly asking for details. That began a chain of communications during which the application would be updated, bugs fixed and I would try it again and send my comments and often result to the developer. With the latest update, 1.0.8, the program now aligns and stacks properly. There is very little post processing available in this application and it is not intended for that. Post processing must be done in a separate program such as Photoshop. The online instruction manual is also not complete as of yet but it is progressing. There are many other features of this application that I have not yet tried. My main reason for purchasing it was to have a Mac program that would align and stack astrophotos and Observatory now does this well. My rating of 5 stars may seem excessive but I am considering the quality of the technical support, relative price and paucity of other similar applications for the Mac. I also expect that Observatory will continue to improve.

Cant even open a few flat frames without freezing. I was thinking it would be more like Adobe Bridge - for astro imaging but nope. wish I could get a refund

Observatory solves my immediate need to be able to blink images for my Extragalactic Supernova Project. And the awesome Plate Solving capabilities are likely to be something I'll be using frequently on many of my images that I include in my Cassiopeia Observatory reports.I also want to highlight the outstanding technical support received from Code Obsession. Responses were quick and very helpful as I began learning to use Observatory.I think that Mac Astrophotographers will like Observatory. Even if like me you do not plan to use all the capabilities in Observatory, its price makes it worthwhile considering all that it does have to offer. Plate Solving alone may be worth the price of admission for many astrophotographers.