Taking flats is quite tricky until you work it out, then it is quite easy. I tried to use T shirt flats too, but had a real hard time getting them right. I ended up I bought a light box from Exfso which gave me a very stable light source. As I use a QHY9, which has the same chip as the 8300, you might have to use a potentiometer in the power supply to dim the light box off a bit to get the right length flats, etc.
http://www.iceinspace.com.au/forum/s...ad.php?t=49736
In MaxIm, I take a single exposure and set screen stretch to "range" so it is an unclipped display. Using the "info" dialouge box, I experiment with the exposure time until I get between 20 and 30000 in the centre of the image on the brightness scale at the left of the info box information. If that looks ok, I save it and open it in Phototshop, adjust the black slider until it is nearly on the left hand side of the histogram and make sure it looks nice and gray and smooth in transition from centre to edges.
I also believe that you will find a "how to" here as well, if that is any help.
http://www.iceinspace.com.au/63-211-0-0-1-0.html
I can do some screen shots of how I do it, but I don't think I could get that done today. I'm also thinking that if you search the forum, this has been discussed before and should provide some good info as well.
