Stars and stripes in Andromeda

[Jessun]

Hello everyone!

So I finally got out in the sticks and tried my indoor skills in the real world... Lots to be said about that but that's another story...

I decided that M31 although tricky was very nicely placed i the sky and that I'd spend the first night on that.

The picture is a mere 50 useful subs at 2 min, 800 ISO. I am guessing I could have held out longer for the subs in terms of exposure time. Anyways my laptop gave up the ghost after about two hours. (Lesson learned)

I have two questions at present; I have below a sample of the DSS stack including 10 darks - before I got bored of holding the shutter down manually - and the first question is if the level sliders at an initial jab at the picture are anywhere near to where you would put them? The snapshot is from the changes have been applied.

Second question related to the second screen shot - a zoom in of the resulting adjustment - the picture looks almost painted, with a stripy pattern. Is this a sign of things gone wrong already in processing?

Third picture is what I managed to extract so far - and in doing so ruined pretty much all 3400 stars in the process haha but such is life:). (Layers leave me clueless but I think it will be something I could toss at this when I have learned more)

All the best

/Jessun

[Jessun]

Some more tinkering, and finally some of that lovely dust starts to show after me being through thread after thread on SGL to learn more about editing so thanks guys!

Still curious to hear your thoughts on my questions above!

/Jessun