pete98

Wow, just the "save as 16bit tiff" in DSS did wonders. This is the stacked picture. Opened that up in Photoshop, and if I understand you right, the triangle on the left is pretty much already at the beginning of the curve. If I move it at all to the right, the sky gets darker, but the nebulosity starts to disappear. But at the moment, I am pretty happy with what I have. Nigel, I will take your advice and get Star Tools. Really appreciate the help guys.

Thanks for all the advice. Will try everything suggested and post results.

Was the first rainless/cloudless nite in about a month here, and temperature was up to a balmy 40° F , so just had to take the scope out. Considering back in the 60's, when I was an avid amateur astronomer and spent countless hours trying to photograph this object without any luck, I was pretty happy. But, know this needs a lot of improving. Registax and DSS make my head spin. Really need to find some step by step "stacking for dummies" tutorial. Not that I am a dummy, cause im not...im just getting very old I guess. Vintage c8 at prime w/.5 focal reducer. 30sec @ 1600 iso. Canon 350d. Seeing conditions: fairly good sky, but light pollution an issue. Exposures longer than 60sec get very washed out. One of 10 images. But when I stacked using DSS, I got this. Can anyone tell me why I lost the "dark sky" background?