WBPP now only accepts XISF for dark masters

Bernard Miller

Hi,

The new WBPP only accepts XISF for dark masters but TL only provides FITS for their calibration masters. I tried reading in the FITS and saving as XISF but the resulting calibrated files are completely black, even after stretching. How are others getting around this new restriction?

Thanks,

Bernard

BlockHead

Bernard,

I would like to explain what the problem is so that people understand the underlying issue.

When TL (or anyone) makes master FITs from 16-bit integer images and saves them as 32-bit float images- this is not a normalized data format like PixInsight.

So PixInsight will look at the lowest and highest values in an image and scale the image (normalize it) to values between 0 and 1. But the range of the 32-bit FITs master files can be *anything* at all. The original input data was 16-bit integer...but not the master files. I *think* if the master FIT files are saved as 16-bit float...I think this would actually solve the issue. 

Alternatively, TL could:

1.  Make the original darks available (they used to...have they discontinued this now?

2. Use their calibrated data and accept whatever they did (this is the direction I know they are going... I know they want to discontinue making the raw data available. 

3. Make XISF masters by using PixInsight as part of their pipeline. But again I believe that #2 is the direction they were going.

This is a perennial issue:

https://pixinsight.com/forum.old/index.php?topic=2931.15

This means you could calibrate the images in CCDStack (for example) or any other program and then go from there to PixInsight..but this really does defeat the purpose of all of the benefits of PI.

-the Blockhead