[Mesa-users] Questions on new colors module

Sun Feb 22 04:50:34 UTC 2026

Hi Andy,

Glad to know this should be possible! Here’s an example of the issue I am having, if I use a full absolute path

 instrument = "/Users/benjaminroulston/Desktop/MESA_dC_Results/cacc/filters/Generic/selected/selected"

The terminal error looks like
./star inlist
 reading user weak rate file /Users/benjaminroulston/Documents/MESA/MESA/mesa-r25.12.1/data/rates_data/rate_tables/S13_r_be7_wk_li7.h5
 version_number r25.12.1
 WARNING: Failed to find colors namelist in file: selected_colors_inlist
 Error: Could not open file/Users/benjaminroulston/Documents/MESA/MESA/mesa-r25.12.1/Users/benjaminroulston/Desktop/MESA_dC_Results/cacc/filters/Generic/selected/selected/selected

And if I use a relative path
instrument = "filters/Generic/selected/selected”              

I get something similar 
./star inlist
 reading user weak rate file /Users/benjaminroulston/Documents/MESA/MESA/mesa-r25.12.1/data/rates_data/rate_tables/S13_r_be7_wk_li7.h5
 version_number r25.12.1
 WARNING: Failed to find colors namelist in file: selected_colors_inlist
 Error: Could not open file/Users/benjaminroulston/Documents/MESA/MESA/mesa-r25.12.1filters/Generic/selected/selected/selected       

And finally, another relative path
instrument = "./filters/Generic/selected/selected"                                                                                                                                              
./star inlist
 reading user weak rate file /Users/benjaminroulston/Documents/MESA/MESA/mesa-r25.12.1/data/rates_data/rate_tables/S13_r_be7_wk_li7.h5
 version_number r25.12.1
 WARNING: Failed to find colors namelist in file: selected_colors_inlist
 Error: Could not open file/Users/benjaminroulston/Documents/MESA/MESA/mesa-r25.12.1./filters/Generic/selected/selected/selected   

It really looks to me like it’s prepending the $MESA_DIR to the path given. I’ve attached my filters directory. It’s just a selection of the ones included with MESA, but I lumped a bunch together. If I put these in the $MESA_DIR/colors/data folder and use the default instrument path as given it works with no issues, so the code works for sure! I’m just struggling with the custom path. 

Cheers,
- Ben
Dr. Benjamin R. Roulston
Assistant Professor & Director of Reynolds Observatory
Department of Physics
Clarkson University
Box 5820  |  8 Clarkson Ave.  |  Potsdam, New York 13699
Science Center 251  |  1–315–268–2349  |  benjaminroulston.com <mailto:roulston at clarkson.edu>

> On Feb 21, 2026, at 12:21 PM, Andy Santarelli via Mesa-users <mesa-users at lists.mesastar.org> wrote:
> 
> Hi Ben,
> 
> You should be able to point to your filter directory via the instrument variable in the colors inlist as you stated, but you may need to add a file to your directory with the same name as the directory itself (e.g. my/filter/directory/JWST/JWST) containing a list of all of the filter filenames you wish to include. It is my understanding that MESA reads this file and then sorts through the filters using that information. 
> 
> I had a similar problem a little while back and this resolved it, but please let me know if it does not and I would be willing to help further however I can. 
> 
> As for your second point about documentation, I agree! It appears there are a few sections in the docs set up for more colors documentation, it just hasn't been transferred there yet. 
> 
> Best,
> Andy Santarelli
> 
> On Sat, Feb 21, 2026 at 7:00 AM <mesa-users-request at lists.mesastar.org <mailto:mesa-users-request at lists.mesastar.org>> wrote:
>> Send Mesa-users mailing list submissions to
>>         mesa-users at lists.mesastar.org <mailto:mesa-users at lists.mesastar.org>
>> 
>> To subscribe or unsubscribe via the World Wide Web, visit
>>         https://lists.mesastar.org/mailman/listinfo/mesa-users
>> or, via email, send a message with subject or body 'help' to
>>         mesa-users-request at lists.mesastar.org <mailto:mesa-users-request at lists.mesastar.org>
>> 
>> You can reach the person managing the list at
>>         mesa-users-owner at lists.mesastar.org <mailto:mesa-users-owner at lists.mesastar.org>
>> 
>> When replying, please edit your Subject line so it is more specific
>> than "Re: Contents of Mesa-users digest..."
>> 
>> 
>> Today's Topics:
>> 
>>    1. Questions on new colors module (Benjamin Roulston)
>> 
>> 
>> ----------------------------------------------------------------------
>> 
>> Message: 1
>> Date: Fri, 20 Feb 2026 18:24:58 -0500
>> From: Benjamin Roulston <broulsto at clarkson.edu <mailto:broulsto at clarkson.edu>>
>> To: mesa-users at lists.mesastar.org <mailto:mesa-users at lists.mesastar.org>
>> Subject: [Mesa-users] Questions on new colors module
>> Message-ID: <9613C238-9E3A-4B90-9BF6-B66CCD64712F at clarkson.edu <mailto:9613C238-9E3A-4B90-9BF6-B66CCD64712F at clarkson.edu>>
>> Content-Type: text/plain; charset="utf-8"
>> 
>> Hi MESA friends,
>> 
>> I was so excited to see the new colors module in the latest release, so thank you for putting that together! I had a question (which may be a suggestion sorry).
>> 
>> With the new colors module, it seems so much easier to add our own filters (yay!). The documentation makes it seem as if we just simply point
>> instrument = '/data/colors_data/filters/Generic/Johnson?
>> To where our filters folder is and the filters will show up in the history data. However, as I?ve been working on this tonight, it looks as though this folder defaults to $MESA_DIR/$instrument
>> 
>> So to get our filters to work, we have to add files to $MESA_DIR. I?ve always treated the source code folder as something to not edit or add my own files to, since new versions will change and its better to keep all user defined files in the work directory of whatever job you?re working on. 
>> 
>> Is there a way to get this instrument variable to be a relative path to the current work directory? Or an absolute path on disk? Or is this actually an intended feature that I am misunderstanding?
>> 
>> Also, Niall Miller who was the lead on this actually has really good documentation on his website (https://nialljmiller.com/projects/MESA_CC/custom_coloUrs.html). A lot of this is not on the MESA documentation for the colors module, which I think it would be great to get some of these details there!
>> 
>>  - MESA version: r25.12.1
>>  - MESA SDK VERSION: mesasdk-aarch64-macos-25.12.1
>>  - OS: macOS Tahoe 26.3
>> 
>> Cheers,
>> - Ben
>> Dr. Benjamin R. Roulston
>> Assistant Professor & Director of Reynolds Observatory
>> Department of Physics
>> Clarkson University
>> Box 5820  |  8 Clarkson Ave.  |  Potsdam, New York 13699
>> Science Center 251  |  1?315?268?2349  |  benjaminroulston.com <http://benjaminroulston.com/> <mailto:roulston at clarkson.edu <mailto:roulston at clarkson.edu>>
>> 
>> -------------- next part --------------
>> An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
>> URL: <https://lists.mesastar.org/pipermail/mesa-users/attachments/20260220/a78e0172/attachment-0001.htm>
>> 
>> End of Mesa-users Digest, Vol 103, Issue 7
>> ******************************************
> _______________________________________________
> mesa-users at lists.mesastar.org
> https://lists.mesastar.org/mailman/listinfo/mesa-users
> 

-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <https://lists.mesastar.org/pipermail/mesa-users/attachments/20260221/1c6e9c2d/attachment.htm>
-------------- next part --------------
A non-text attachment was scrubbed...
Name: filters.zip
Type: application/zip
Size: 25142 bytes
Desc: not available
URL: <https://lists.mesastar.org/pipermail/mesa-users/attachments/20260221/1c6e9c2d/attachment.zip>
-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <https://lists.mesastar.org/pipermail/mesa-users/attachments/20260221/1c6e9c2d/attachment-0001.htm>