Equipment:
Askar 107PHQ / AM5N
ASI183MM, Chroma LRGB w/ 1.25" EFW
ZWO OAG w/ ASI290mm
Acquisition:
Bortle 4-ish, about 8 hours of data. 60s subs at Gain 111, -10C
Darks, but no flats (that faint red glow in the background is a post-processing artifact, got lazy and gave up trying to get rid of it)
Pixinsight:
Blink > WBPP, then manual Integration
DynamicCrop > BlurX > GradientCorrection on each channel
ChannelCombination for RGB, then ABE and ColorCalibration
NoiseX, then use Lum Extract to make a mask for stars and galaxy
Curves for color enhancement on masked area, then Convolution to slightly blur
UnsharpMask and another BlurX on original Lum channel to get it as sharp as possible
LRGBCombination, just the sharpened luminance into the RGB image, bring sharpness back in
Another light NoiseX, some LocalHistogramEqualization, HistogramTransformation for background darkness, etc.
Haven't done LRGB processing in like 3 years, so it was fun to get back into it. I will say that having BlurX, NoiseX, and GradientCorrection are almost like having cheat codes in this hobby. What used to be so much work can now be done in like two clicks.
by autisticlettuce