diff --git a/.github/workflows/python-publish-wheel.yml b/.github/workflows/python-publish-wheel.yml
index be562b8..e52cb30 100644
--- a/.github/workflows/python-publish-wheel.yml
+++ b/.github/workflows/python-publish-wheel.yml
@@ -24,7 +24,7 @@ jobs:
       fail-fast: false
       matrix:
         os: [ubuntu-latest, windows-latest, macos-latest]
-        python-version: ["3.8", "3.9", "3.10", "3.11"]
+        python-version: ["3.10", "3.11", "3.12"]
     runs-on: ${{ matrix.os }}
     steps:
       - uses: actions/checkout@v4
diff --git a/.github/workflows/python-testing-matrix.yml b/.github/workflows/python-testing-matrix.yml
index 405803d..ea67014 100644
--- a/.github/workflows/python-testing-matrix.yml
+++ b/.github/workflows/python-testing-matrix.yml
@@ -18,7 +18,7 @@ jobs:
       fail-fast: true
       matrix:
         os: [ubuntu-latest, windows-latest, macos-latest]
-        python-version: ["3.8", "3.9", "3.10", "3.11"]
+        python-version: ["3.10", "3.11", "3.12", "3.13", "3.14"]
 
     steps:
 
diff --git a/_updateversion.py b/_updateversion.py
deleted file mode 100644
index c87ab05..0000000
--- a/_updateversion.py
+++ /dev/null
@@ -1,32 +0,0 @@
-#!/usr/bin/env/python
-# coding=utf-8
-
-
-import os
-import subprocess
-
-
-_HERE = os.path.abspath(os.path.dirname(__file__))
-
-
-def updateversion(path=_HERE):
-
-    # Fetch version from git tags, and write to version.py
-    # Also, when git is not available (PyPi package), use stored version.py
-    version_py = os.path.join(path, 'datastock', 'version.py')
-    try:
-        version_git = subprocess.check_output(
-            ["git", "describe"]
-        ).rstrip().decode()
-
-    except subprocess.CalledProcessError:
-        with open(version_py, 'r') as fh:
-            version_git = fh.read().strip().split("=")[-1].replace("'", '')
-
-    version_git = version_git.lower().replace('v', '').replace(' ', '')
-
-    version_msg = "# Do not edit, pipeline versioning governed by git tags!"
-    with open(version_py, "w") as fh:
-        msg = "{0}__version__ = '{1}'{0}".format(os.linesep, version_git)
-        fh.write(version_msg + msg)
-    return version_git
diff --git a/pyproject.toml b/pyproject.toml
index 23ddb69..46f93a9 100644
--- a/pyproject.toml
+++ b/pyproject.toml
@@ -35,13 +35,16 @@ maintainers = [
 keywords = [
     "data", "analysis", "interactive", "heterogeneous arrays", "numpy", "Collection",
 ]
-requires-python = ">=3.8"
+# due to astropy >= 6.1 and to end-of-life of 3.9
+# see https://devguide.python.org/versions/
+requires-python = ">=3.10"
 dependencies = [
-    "numpy<1.25",  # for astropy compatibility vs deprecated np.product
+    "numpy",  # for astropy compatibility vs deprecated np.product
     "scipy",
     "matplotlib",
     # "PySide2 ; platform_system != 'Windows'",
-    "astropy",
+    # see https://github.com/ToFuProject/datastock/pull/243
+    "astropy>=6.1",
 ]