M45 Pleiades - to crop or not?

[groberts]

I'm going to pay for this but starting in October for three months running at or around new moon I had clear skies!  Last time on 6th December for one night only I returned to that seasonal favourite Pleiades with the objective of teasing out more details of those delightful wispy intersetaller clouds through which M45 is passing.  Armed with new Chroma filters acquired last Christmas, better guiding courtesy of the new PHD2 multi-star facility and having shifted to PixInsight for most of my processing over the past 18-months, I'm very pleased with the outcome - certainly it's much better than my previous attempts and, I think, does justice to those exciting clouds.

Using a William Optics GT81 and ZWO 1600MM-Cool I generally like to crop lightly just to tidy up things and only more agressively if it's needed on those smaller objects which this equipment otherwise struggles with.  However, this time I'm wondering if the better image isn't a 60% crop thus producing greater impact - any thoughts?

12 x 300 sec LRGB = 4hours

         

Edited December 16, 2021 by groberts

[geeklee]

Definitely the first one for me @groberts  While it looks great at most FL - a wide(r) Pleiades can offer a great framing opportunity and there's a lot of faint dust too.

[scotty38]

First one for me too!

[Zummerzet_Leveller]

No crop for me too.  Nice image.

[Laurin Dave]

Don't crop, you lose the yellow stars which for me add interest and variety ...  I'd run scnr over it though to remove the slight green cast

[groberts]

Thanks, appreciate the comments, that's very helpful. 

Yes will do, now you mention it there is a slight green cast there, need to go to Specsavers!  

Graham