Batch Preprocessing Problem - calibrating flats

[jeffweiss9]

Need some help, please.  When running the BatchPreprocessing script v1.22, sometimes it fails ("couldn't execute in global context...") because it says that it's "searching for a Master Dark of 2sec exposure" presumably to match the exposure time of my 2-sec lightbox flats.  Most of the time this does not occur when, as usual I give it only a Master Bias at the temperature of the flats, and everything works just fine without complaint.   Why is the script doing this (and only sometimes)?  I can't figure out what's different when it does this, except it has occurred only on R,G,B calibrations that are binned 2x2 and haven't seen it when L-only frames without binning are being calibrated.  I can calibrate these same flats in the standard (Peris tutorial) method without problem and I guess use that MasterFlat as a workaround for this problem, but it seems this is a problem with the script, not me.  Or is it me?
Help appreciated to make the BatchPreprocessing script work for me on this.
Thanks,
-Jeff

[jeffweiss9]

I would still love some help from someone knowledgable about this script as to why it sometimes requests darks with short exposure to match the flats and other times not.

However, I can at least provide a work-around that let me get the script to complete:
 Namely, I made the Master Flats the old fashion way by using ImageCalibration and ImageIntegration per process icons that I previously used that follow Vicent's calibration tutorial.  However, to make those Master Flats acceptable to the BatchPreprocessing script, I had to add the following additional lines to their FITS headers:
MASTERTYP 'Master Flat'
FILTER 'Blue'        or 'Green', 'Red'
XBINNING  2.
YBINNING  2.
BINNING 2.
The BatchProcessing script then ran successfully.
Hope that work-around helps anyone else who ran into this problem of requiring short darks to calibrate the short flats. 

Perhaps someone can tell me that you are also supposed to take such short darks with the short flats since I've never done that. For ImageCalibration of the flats, I've always used the master dark corresponding to the temperature of the flats but not the short exposure time of the flats.  If the script requires short darks also for the flats (and at least sometimes isn't getting them or does care that its not getting them from the CCDSoft flats capture), can you input them along with the longer darks for the lights at the same time into the BatchPreprocessing script?  If so, I certainly could start taking short darks to go with my short flats.
 Hard to come by information on this, so any suggestions greatly appreciated.  (I notice that many questions posted about problems with this script never seem to get answered but it is a great script if I can get past these hiccups)
Thanks.
-Jeff

[cfranks]

I too had a 'problem' in how BatchPreProcessing handled Flats.  I had created many Flats with an automatic exposure plug-in and BPP listed them individually against their respective exposure time which was different for each Flat.  I didn't try to use them like that so I did as you did, created a Master Flat by following Vicent's tutorial.

Charles

[jeffweiss9]

Charles-
 Thanks. Yes I know there are others also who've had this problem.  I'm still hopeful the author or someone can explain what the script is expecting in terms of darks for the flats.  In the process of trying, I also saw at one point where the script worked to some point but put each image into a separate section.  Anyway the workaround enabled me to finish processing the image in question (although I have no idea why the script had no problem with my previous image which had similar types of data, I thought, going into it).
-Jeff