Cave Nebula - my most involved image yet

[Erling G-P]

Saw a gorgeous image of this by a Ukrainian imager I believe, and was itching to have a go at it myself.  However, my first outing in less than stellar conditions, revealed it to be a very data hungry subject.  Thus dedicated two more evening/nights to imaging it.  All 3 sessions comprised Meridian flips, my firsts, to extend data collection beyond the inevitable leg crash. Performed manually, including camera rotation.

Total integration time is 16.6 hours and this is my best process yet.  Not sure if I've stretched it to far, with the left side being very hazy, or if it's simply dust & gas being lit/exited by the stars - after all, the dark dust in the right side is still very dark.  What do you guys think?

Details:  SW 130 PDS, SW 0.9 CC, SW HEQ5 Pro w/ADM saddle & Rowan belt mod, Canon 700Da cooled, Staraid Revolution autoguider.  Stacked with DSS, processed with Astroart 6 & Topaz DeNoise.

Next project is to home in closer on the nebula itself, including the dark dust & reflection nebula in the lower right, using my 200 PDS.  If the low clouds would [removed word] off, I might get started on that tonight..

[Marvin Jenkins]

Love it. Can’t tell you if you have taken it too far as I do not know. I just think it is a great image showing a vast difference in what is out there. Well done.

Marv

[mikey2000]

The dark stuff looks nicely dark but I see what you mean about the left side.  I don't know much (anything!) about this patch of sky but maybe the left bit is full brightness? (We can't always assume our nebula is in the middle wiht nice dark space all around the edges)

[Erling G-P]

Thanks for the comments guys.  As there's a couple of small, dark swirls visible in the left side too, I'm inclined to think there must be gas/dust there too - if I had blown the dark background, then the swirls shouldn't be dark either I would guess.  200 PDS currently gobbling up photons on the same area, so hope I'll get something useful from that too!