Making flats in PixInsight

[KathyNS]

I installed my brand-new Oiii filter into the filter wheel. (Yay!!) But, having opened the filter wheel, and having disassembled my imaging train to do it, I need new flats. It has been a while since I made flats, during which time I have forgotten how, and PixInsight has changed.

I thought that, the last time I made flats, I just pointed to the individual flat files in BPP, and it generated master flats along with master lights. But it wasn't happy doing that today. It complained that the exposure times of the flats and lights didn't match. WTH?? Since when are flats exposure time-dependent?

How do you make master flats in PI? I have a set of flat frames that I made today, with all kinds of weird exposure times, as recommended by SGP's Flats Calibration Wizard, and at no particular temperature.

[STEVE333]

Hi Kathy - It looks like your sensor is a CCD - very nice.

I believe that CCD's use Bias, Flat, and Dark frames for calibration. If that is true then:
Put your Bias frames in the Bias tab of BPP.
Put your Flat frames in the Flats tab of BPP.
Make sure the Use master bias and Use master dark checkboxes are unchecked.
Then specify the output directory and click Run.

I think that will create your MasterFlats for you.

Steve

[KathyNS]

Thanks.

I was doing it right, then. I investigated further and found that I had forgotten to specify the filters for my flats session in SGP. D'oh! :joking: Re-running SGP now.

[STEVE333]

Good news. Hope the flats turn out well. Sooooooo many thinks to remember and apply.

Cheers

[KathyNS]

They turned out fine, thanks. My M-2 image was calibrated using them.