Maxim DL 5 LRGB stacking issues

[graham.hobart]

I have asked this question before and I got pointed to the manual- which I have read and have also followed the stacking guide step by step so any other suggestions please.
When I try and stack LRGB frames from the QSI I can make calibration masters, then add files and when the steps to stack come along it whizzes through and then only stacks one L frame. It rejects all the other frames.
I don't know what I am doing wrong.
I am using the auto select stars for stacking but my frames aren't currently plate solved.
I didn't nominate a "master " L frame but high lighted all in the group to stack- is this why?
If I have 30 frames to stack it stacks one and then records 29 errors.
I am sure I am following the manual correctly.
Help please
Graham.

[Tandum]

Graham, here 's how I do it. I'm assuming you have Maxim 5.xx and a cooled mono camera.
I take 30minutes darks and bias shots from the imaging camera, about a dozen darks and 25 bias shots, for 1 x and 2 x binning. I add these to set calibration, clearing out any old files and then create masters. Maxim auto scales the darks to suit the time period you are using for lights.

When capturing lights I connect maxim to the scope via ascom so the ra/dec is recorded into the fits file for pinpoint. Now I have my lights and flats, I add the flats to set calibration and go to process/stack and then add folder, pointing it to my lights. It's smart enough not to open any flats in the folder so long as you marked them as flats when you shot them as that is also written to the fits file. I have auto calibrate and classify by object ticked. If you used maxims catalog to navigate to target then the target name will also be in the fits and it will seperate lights into different objects on the next page, Quality.

I get the quality checks started and go have a coffee, it can take some time. All boxes are ticked. Once it has scored the image files you can alter the settings to reject or include more/less of them. I always align with astrometric and it also can take some time to run. I have had problems in the past where this would not work but found I had bad darks causing the problem. To test this, open a single light in maxim and run pinpoint to see if it resolves, checking the number of stars used by pinpoint. If it does work then calibrate that image and run pinpoint again and check the number of stars. If this works then astrometric aligning will work. When it was failing for me there where a lot less stars used by pinpoint. New cal files fixed that issue.

Maxim will auto select a Lum as master in each object as it aligns. From there, straight to combine and done. Hope this helps.

[graham.hobart]

Excellent!, thanks very much, that helps a great deal.
Just need the rain to stop now to have another go.
Much appreciated.
Graham