Lagoon and Helix Nebulae

[SimonJoubert]

This is the first time I've posted any images online, feedback would be greatly appreciated. I think my processing is definitely a weak point as I have seen far better images in much worse conditions and less integration time. The colours may be a bit cooked as I played around with saturation quite a bit.

Processing:
Both images were stacked and processed in Pixinsight, using WBPP, SPCC and BlurXterminator. The stars were removed and the sky/nebulosity was stretched and deconvoluted using BlurXterminator. The stars were separately stretched and recombined with the background using PixelMath.
In the case of the Lagoon nebula, I adjusted the vibrance and saturation in Photoshop. At the time of acquisition, I did not have a UV/IR filter so the stars are quite bloated.

Equipment:
ZWO 533MC
Skywatcher 72ED with 0.83x reducer
Saxon HEQ5 Pro

Acquisition:
Bortle 3 Skies
Lagoon Nebula:
20x300s Lights, 50% rejected due to poor seeing, total 50 minutes of integration
20x Darks

Helix:
250x300s Lights, 60% rejected due to poor seeing, total 12.5 hours of integration.
20x Darks

[Dave882]

Really nice images Simon. I especially like the Lagoon!

[AstroViking]

Hi Simon,

It's good to see another SW72ED owner here. Welcome!

Both of those image look great, and are a great way to say 'hello", as it were. There's plenty of detail in both of them, and you've done well to get good colour schemes.

Would it help to use shorter exposures to get around the bloated stars?

Cheers,
V

[SimonJoubert]

Thanks V!
Yeah, great to see other people using the 72ED, it's a nice little scope.
Thanks for the comments on colour and detail, SPCC and BlurXterminator are great for that!
Shorter exposures are probably a good idea, you're right. Particularly with Carina I wasn't thinking about just how bright some of those stars are.
Thanks,
Simon

[SimonJoubert]

Thanks Dave!