Multi-session Darks won't Load - v1.071 Windows 10

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Hi,

Is there any update on this, I cant process my images until this is resolved?

Thanks

Jon

Hi Jon -

If your darks are taken in different sessions but with the same camera and the same temperature / gain / exposure length, unless the sessions are many months apart and you think the darks have changed, you shouldn't need more than one set of darks with the same parameters.    In other words, if your sessions are from the same six to 12 month span as your darks, the only calibration files that are likely to change from night to night are flats.  

I'm not sure that's your problem, but here's a possible workaround while you are waiting to hear from Mabula:  just load your dark frames and BPM, and create master darks.  Then calibrate your lights using pre-built master darks, flats, BPM and bias.    If you want more step-by-step instructions to do this, holler 🙂 !

Rowland

Hi Rowland,

Thanks for getting back to me. I do reuse Darks from previous sessions but with this set of data I need to include 300s and 1200s stacks. The programme lets me load them all in ok but only retains Darks from the last session I enter. At least it only shows the last session in the file list.

I'm happy to try your work-around, although could use some more detail as I have never pre-processed masters. However, if I need to load Masters for each stack I'm wondering whether the programme may again only keep the last master entered?

Thanks

Jon

Hi Jon,

I load 7 different master darks and then apply them to all filters and sessions and it seems to work OK.  I haven't tried to load all my files and do a multi-session all at once process in a while.  I use a CMOS camera and the total number of files can get rather huge, as I usually collect data over several months.  I've gotten into the routine of calibrating my lights with APP the day after I take them, and save the calibrated lights until I have my goal to continue processing.  It spreads the work out and makes it a bit easier when it comes time to analyze, register and align the lights.

To build the master darks, I would just:

1) Set your work directory as desired.  I save my master calibration files in one easy to access folder, with separate date folders for flats.

2) Load up your dark files and BPM in the Load tab.   

3) In the Calibrate tab,

    a) Check "Create MasterBias, -Dark, -Flat."

    b) Click "Create Masters and Assign to Lights"

You can of course make any other setting changes that you like to use when creating calibration files, that's just the bare bones to make the masters.

You should be able to load all your darks at once (300s and 1200s) and get two master darks as a result.  

Then when it comes time to calibrate your light frames, load your master darks, bias, BPM and flats.  Or make master flats following a similar process to making master darks, and then just load those to calibrate your lights.

Hope that helps,

Rowland

Thanks Rowland, I will give that a try for now - might be next week before I get chance 🙂

Hi,

I've not tried to do this myself so don't know the result but looks as if it is possible to assign MDs to more than one session with a single load request, see screenshot.

Mike

Posted by: mestutters

Hi,

I've not tried to do this myself so don't know the result but looks as if it is possible to assign MDs to more than one session with a single load request, see screenshot.

Mike

Thanks Mike but the problem I have is that I need to assign different Darks to different Sessions. 

Hi Jon,

You don't need to load lights to create masters.  

If you follow the steps I outlined above it should build your masters and you can then use them later to calibrate your lights.

I just did this today to create master flats for last night's imaging.   

You are right about the darks being lumped together even if they are different exposure lengths, if they are loaded all at once.  That's another good reason to create master darks separately and then load them together with your lights to calibrate the lights.

Cheers,

Rowland

I have now managed to create Master Darks and have loaded them with the Lights and other Calibration frames. 

The Calibration "submit" options I now have are to "Create New Masters" or "Re-Assign Lights" but I need to do both. I want to re-assign the Darks Masters and Create Masters for the other Calibration Frames. Any ideas?

I must have spent a day messing around with this, getting a bit frustrating 🙂 

UPDATE. I used the "Create new Masters" option and it has run through and created the additional Masters. At the end of the process it assigned MD, MF and MB to each Light - so it appears to have used the MD's that I had previously made. So it looks fine now except that the MDF's don't appear to have been assigned, at least as far as I can see from the log. Perhaps MDFs are not required if MDs are present ?

I'll be glad when Mabula gets to look at the potential Bug so I can load everything in one go, I'm not keen on doing it a bit at a time tbh.

Thanks for your help Rowland, at least I now have some files to process 🙂

Cheers

Jon

Create all your master calibration frames before loading your lights.

Load your master calibration frames and follow the prompts to assign them to the proper filters and/or sessions.

Load your light frames and follow the prompts to assign them to the proper filters and/or sessions.

Click re-Assign Masters to Lights.

Proceed with calibrating your Lights, and whatever else you want to do with the Lights (analyze stars, register, etc.)

Don't get discouraged, once you have this down, it's really quick.  But take notes as you go so you won't have to re-learn this!

Cheers,

Rowland

Thanks Rowland, it's really useful to have a work around although I would still like to be able to load everything in one go as I have designed a workflow around it and have a loading spreadsheet etc. Also, it saves having to map the calibration frames twice which saves time overall.

Appreciate your help, and just looking at my Ha integration it looks like I have a good starting point for post processing.

Glad you got past the hurdle.   We'll see if Mabula can answer your question about loading everything at once.   I've adjusted my workflow several times and what I use now works quite well for me, but there are many approaches to this.  The only masters I create on a regular basis are master flats.  I created a set of master darks at multiple exposure lengths so I only refresh them once a year or so.  Same with master bias, BPM and flat darks.  Mabula pointed out that with my camera, an ASI1600MM, I could use a slightly longer than normal bias (0.1 to 0.5 seconds) and scale a single master flat-dark when calibrating the flats.

So my normal routine is to load my whole set of relevant masters for bias, flat dark, darks and BPM.  "Relevant" means matching gain and temperature.  I load my flats from the most recent session and create master flats.  I then unload the flat files, leaving the full set of masters loaded.  Load the lights and click "Save Calibrated Frames."  That's it.  I accumulate my calibrated frames until I'm ready to process the images, then load them all up using just multi-filter, not multi-session, and go from there.

Your image looks great, Jon!  What camera are you using?  My ASI1600MM has an ugly microlens pattern around Alnitak when I shoot this field.

Rowland

As you say, lots of different options 🙂

I use a Trius SX814 CCD. This image is just the Ha, I also have RGB which I plan to use together. Alnitak looks ok in Ha but is much more bloated in the RGB, especially in Blue. I'm hoping that overlaying the Ha will tone it down a bit but I am expecting some issues in processing to get where I want to be.

Has this been fixed in 1.075 - I see there is some auto matching of Calibration Frames?

UPDATE - No it hasn't. I will log this again as a bug as this post hasn't been updated in nearly a year.

Been a while so forgive me if I get something wrong; I can load my darks and assign them to a session. Is that not working for you? I also think it shouldn't matter in the sense that only flats are session dependant when using 1 camera, so I think you can just load them in for all sessions and they get auto-assigned. If that is not working still somehow I'll let Mabula know personally to see what is going on in your particular case.

Hi Vincent. Thanks for responding. I have the same issue with Flats and have posted a new example to highlight this. I still have APP running with this example in it so if you need any logs or extra information please let me know.

Allright I'll have a look at it asap, I can help you tomorrow at the earliest unfortunately, but we will see if we can sort this out this time. Sorry you didn't get an answer previously.

Great thanks Vincent. I will try and copy the APP file list showing what I am seeing onto the new ticket. 

Hi,

Just a thought  but I have a recollection that APP also checks for a match between e.g. the camera name in the FITS header fields of the Lights and calibration frames.   I have found that on reinstalling drivers the camera, filter wheel names assigned are not always the same.    

I'm not sure that just assigning frames to a session is sufficient if equipment names do not also match.

Mike

The loading process for each calibration frame asks which session and which filter to apply the frame to, so if it is over-riding this its another issue.

I don't know how it works behind the scenes but I would have hoped the logic would use the information provided and not try and make something up itself.

By all means use available information to check the user hasn't done anything daft but if the user says "use these flats for session 1 Blue filter" that is what I would expect it to do.

I'll forward this issue to Mabula directly, seems it's either something I'm missing or you're right it has a bug.

@vincent-mod

My preference would be user error - easier to fix 😩