Apply Bias to Flat Darks Only?

Hi Wayne @whixson,

Please check this question

https://www.astropixelprocessor.com/community/tutorials-workflows/astronomical-data-calibration-priciples-must-read/paged/3/#post-4990

with the answer:

https://www.astropixelprocessor.com/community/tutorials-workflows/astronomical-data-calibration-priciples-must-read/paged/3/#post-4999

My adivce would be to create 1 MasterDarkFlat with a suitable exposure time with respect to the mean exposure time of all of our flats. And then apply dark scaling on the masterdarkflat. To be able to do this, you will need to add a suitable Masterbias as well, because scaling can only be done on the dark current signal and noise, so the bias signal must be known.

Now, since a real bias of the asi1600mm-pro (real being, a bias shot with the shortest exposure time possible) is not good. I advice you to create a Masterbias with a bit longer exposure time. Use 0.1 seconds instead of 0.001 seconds. The resulting Masterbias will be better and it will hardly be affected by dark current since this is stil a very short exposure time.

In 2) calibrate, you can enable darkflat scaling. Check the integration options for a MasterDarkFlat.

Let me know if this helps to get it done in the way you want. It should be possible without problems.

Mabula