Summary
Sidereal (formerly Skymmich) is shifting from an Immich companion app to a standalone, self-hosted image platform purpose-built for astrophotography and astronomy imaging.
Background
The project was originally conceived as a companion to Immich — extending it with astrophotography-specific features like plate solving, equipment tracking, acquisition logging, and sky map visualization. As a result, the current codebase is tightly coupled to Immich: image synchronization, serving, metadata management, and the plate solving pipeline all depend on the Immich API.
New Direction
The platform should own its image pipeline end-to-end — ingestion, storage, serving, metadata, and processing — without requiring any external service. The focus is on being the best self-hosted solution for managing, organizing, and working with astrophotography and astronomy images.
Immich as a Plugin
Immich should transition from a required dependency to an optional plugin integration — one of potentially many external services that can be connected for syncing or loading images. The plugin architecture should be designed so that other integrations (direct upload, NINA, file system watchers, etc.) are equally viable sources.
Core Principles
- Standalone first: The platform must be fully functional with zero external dependencies beyond its own stack
- Astro-native: First-class support for astrophotography formats (FITS, XISF, camera RAW), metadata, and workflows
- Plugin-extensible: External integrations (Immich, NINA, etc.) connect through a well-defined plugin/source interface
- Self-hosted: Maintains the self-hosted, privacy-respecting ethos
Scope of Work
This is a foundational architectural shift that touches:
- Image storage & serving: Local image management replacing Immich proxy
- Ingestion pipeline: Support for direct uploads, file system sources, and plugin-based sources
- Source abstraction layer: A plugin interface that Immich (and future integrations) implement
- Database schema: Decoupling from
immichId as the primary image identifier
- Frontend: Image display, upload UI, and admin configuration updates
- Branding: Remaining Skymmich → Sidereal naming updates throughout the codebase
Summary
Sidereal (formerly Skymmich) is shifting from an Immich companion app to a standalone, self-hosted image platform purpose-built for astrophotography and astronomy imaging.
Background
The project was originally conceived as a companion to Immich — extending it with astrophotography-specific features like plate solving, equipment tracking, acquisition logging, and sky map visualization. As a result, the current codebase is tightly coupled to Immich: image synchronization, serving, metadata management, and the plate solving pipeline all depend on the Immich API.
New Direction
The platform should own its image pipeline end-to-end — ingestion, storage, serving, metadata, and processing — without requiring any external service. The focus is on being the best self-hosted solution for managing, organizing, and working with astrophotography and astronomy images.
Immich as a Plugin
Immich should transition from a required dependency to an optional plugin integration — one of potentially many external services that can be connected for syncing or loading images. The plugin architecture should be designed so that other integrations (direct upload, NINA, file system watchers, etc.) are equally viable sources.
Core Principles
Scope of Work
This is a foundational architectural shift that touches:
immichIdas the primary image identifier