Widefield Iris Nebula work in progress

[Phillyo]

So far I've managed to gather 377 x 2min exposures on this area, which is approx 12.5 hours of data. I think I'm about half way to what I probably need. Wowzers!

I've never tried to edit a dark nebula before, nor have I ever tried to image one so I have no idea if my exposures are long enough or too long (any advice is VERY welcome) or how to edit them in pixinsight. But it's all a good learning curve! So, please see and critique my widefield view of NGC 7023, The Iris Nebula. Taken with a Samyang 135mm lens at f3.5 and the 533MC Pro with just the UV/IR filter. 

Thanks for looking! 

Phil

[Mike73]

Cant offer any critique but I can say its a great looking image!

[wimvb]

Very nice indeed. I would crop the image to avoid the bright star upper right.

[gorann]

Looks very promising. I would add some shorter (maybe 30s) exposures to save the core of the Iris, which now looks a bit blown out. However, it could also be a result of the stretching of the histogram. What does it look like before you start stretching?

[Phillyo]

3 hours ago, gorann said:

Looks very promising. I would add some shorter (maybe 30s) exposures to save the core of the Iris, which now looks a bit blown out. However, it could also be a result of the stretching of the histogram. What does it look like before you start stretching?

Thanks Gorann, yeah it's already very bright prior to stretching, I was thinking of adding some shorter exposures for the core and to try and get better star colours rather than oversaturated white stars. Do you think doing any longer exposures would bring out any more dust detail or would more 2min exposures be better? I know this is sky brightness limited of course. I'm in a 5 zone, moving towards 6 sadly

4 hours ago, wimvb said:

Very nice indeed. I would crop the image to avoid the bright star upper right.

Thank you. I have already cropped it a bit, but you're right I might chop a bit more off to remove that bright star. 

[gorann]

I think your camera behaves similar to my ASI2600MC so on a bright area like this I would not see a need to go longer than 2 min if you use it at gain 100, especially since you have more light pollution than I have (Bortle 2-3).

[Phillyo]

1 hour ago, gorann said:

I think your camera behaves similar to my ASI2600MC so on a bright area like this I would not see a need to go longer than 2 min if you use it at gain 100, especially since you have more light pollution than I have (Bortle 2-3).

I thought as much. Thanks for the response.