Heart in lots of Ha, and RGB

[cfpendock]

This image is comprised of about 5 hours of 7nm Ha in 20 minute and four hours total of RGB in five minute subs.  Shooting was made more interesting by the fact that the target inevitably crossed the meridian during the imaging time.  I don’t mind meridian flips, but I do like to be there when it happens - just in case.  

 

I think that I have included perhaps too much Ha (blended with the red), but I didn’t want to lose some of the more subtle detail which the the Ha alone provided.  Perhaps this is one of the images which I feel looks just as good in Ha alone as in colour, certainly I liked the smoothness of the original:  http://stargazerslounge.com/topic/232902-heart-nebula/

 

I had a lot of trouble controlling the stars - the RGB version looked overwhelmed with them at first, and having reduced them (dust and scratches etc in photoshop), the larger stars seem to have developed slightly spiky halos. Why?  

 

One other problem I have is that the image doesn’t seem as smooth as I would have liked, although I took care not to over-process, and there is no sharpening.  Is there a way of smoothing an image without losing the detail?

 

I have uploaded the file as a JPEG.  Looking at the uploaded image quality, I was shocked to see the degradation when compared to the original saved JPEG.  Trying a PNG file didn't really improve things, and resulted a much bigger file, so I apologise for the quality.  It just shows that other peoples images reproduced here as JPEGs which I admire,must be truly spectacular as originals!

 

Any comments or help gratefully received.

 

Chris

 

[red dwalf]

Stunning.

[cfpendock]

Thanks red dwalf.

Sorry, this is posted in the wrong forum - should have been deep sky imaging.  Mods, is it possible to move it?

thanks

Chris