CB - Thank you for the time and education. What am I saying wrong? Within several online forums they reference that newer OSC's do not require bias frames but instead you dark_flats which is a dark with the same exposure as the flat frames. Then use dark frames with the same exposure as light frames.
It makes no more sense to talk about a "dark_flat" (which would better be called a flat dark) than it does to talk about a "dark_light". They are all just darks with exposure times matched to light frames of some kind (and flats are a type of light frame). So a separate designation for the darks used for flats from the darks used for lights is increasingly deprecated as unnecessary and confusing (especially give the lack of common terminology).
This is a rather tedious flame-war that folks use to show how much they know. It is clear that you know what you mean by a dark_flat - and so do I and so does everyone else (except WBPP, which needs all darks, including dark_flats / flat_darks to be called darks). Don't let it worry you - most of us really don't care what you call them provided it is clear what you mean.
Nevertheless, it is excellent advice to use proper, clearly understood terms that are widely accepted. Hence my advice to avoid a low quality, deprecated term. And, of course, to use a bias frame to calibrate a flat if the sensor allows for it (which is usually the case).
If you kept them, it's interesting to blink through the files in the folder of registered images to see just how unregistered they actually were when it was being overwhelmed by hot pixels. Not just offset errors, but 180° rotations of some subs.
When you say unregistered images...is there an area to find those? I have used blink, still new to me, but have used it. The 180 flip would be normal on the meridian flip during the session.
One of the folders that WBPP creates in its output path contains all the registered images. The folder is cleverly named "registered". If you blink through those, you should see that all are perfectly aligned. Side of meridian doesn't matter, since registration compensates for that.
... unless you forget to select CC, in which case you will probably see the mess you had before (which is @cloudbait's point).
CB, I am confused. Al the software I use when the object crosses the meridian and the scope flips the images are 180 out of phase with each other. They do get corrected in the processing but the actual FITS is 180 flipped. What am I missing?
I'm not talking about your FITS raw data. I'm talking about the images in your registered folder. Unless something goes wrong, they will all be aligned and rotated to match your reference image.
Ok I follow. Let me look at that. I was not aware of that.