wimvb

Stunning indeed. Is that ERE in the background?

There is a script for that in Scripts - utilities: HSVrepair. Just run with standard settings, but also with the "unrepaired V" box checked. Then create a new image from the H, S, and unrepaired V channels. Do this on the unstretched image.

Much improved with better stars and a flat background. To lift the outer ring while keeping the core, you can try starting with masked stretch in PI. Repair the star cores of bright stars before you stretch. Use HDR processes or local histogram adjustments (lhe) to tame the core. In general, hdr will change local contrast by a general darkening of an area, while lhe will brighten the image locally.

An obsy. I'll post pictures later. Hopefully I'll be able to catch a few galaxies around Andromeda from it soon.

Starnet++ is your friend for this job. It's available as a standalone program as well as a script for PixInsight. Just google it. Process one copy of the image for stars, and one for maximum impact for the nebula. Remove stars in the latter and replace with those of the former. Btw, you got more colour variation in the nebula. It looks better, imo.

Thst's s very nice image of an unusual object. As the astrophotographer Metsavainio wrote, it's reminiscent of a wide screen version of the Rosetta nebula. I just wonder what happened to the small stars in your image? The star field reminds me of too aggressive star reduction in Pixinsight. But you used Gimp.

Excellent image, Rodd. Great contrast and brilliant control of the dark dust lane on the right. At the same time you kept the stars under control.

Very nice, Dean. Did you have a lot of moisture in the air, or high cloud maybe? The image seems very soft, as if imaged through thin cloud. Btw, the tif file you posted, is unavailable.

That makes more sense. The shape threw me off, thinking it was a galaxy. But a PN is much more likely. Does anyone have a 3+ m fl telescope to zoom in on that small beauty?

Excellent image, Rodd. Btw, you probably noticed it yourself, there is a small galaxy left of the nebula. I never noticed it before in images of this target. Usually it is just outside the frame.

The last one looks a lot better. Have you tried processing without trying to keep the ifn? Otherwise, assuming you use pixinsight, try multiscale hdr transform on the galaxies only. This will take their brightness down.

@AndrewG, I took the liberty of downloading your original image and put it through PixInsight. I hope you don't mind. I darkened it a bit and then applied a range mask to target the bright nebula on the left hand side, in order to put a bit more contrast into it. I applied Local Histogram Equalisation at about 25% strength, with scale factors 64 and 150. I then eroded the stars slightly with Morphological Transformation and a ring mask.

That made a difference. You pulled out a lot more of the faint nebulosity, but unfortunately introduced dark rings around the stars and purple colour burn on the lower right hand side. Image processing is a dark art.

Better. You have more clarity in the bright nebula, but still good star control. Just for kicks, use starnet in PI to create a starless image. Then go all in on colour saturation and contrast. It probably won't give you an image you'd want to publish, but it will show you how much is in the data. Imo, you can't push data to its limit if you never cross that limit.

A very nice comeback. I think you can safely increase contrast to give it more punch.