Thanks Rod,
Yeah I am happy with how smooth it came out, no noise reduction needed and hardly any stretching as the histogram was so full it didnt need much at all.
I am stoked at how well the light box turned out, I thought it may be a little dim as I used 4 x 10000mcd Clear LEDs and the obligatory 430 ohm series resistors (after I blew one up when testing without the resistor - DOH), but in the dark the front aperture with the white perspex was beautifully illuminated and even the whole box glowed. I will need to tape that up if I want to use it at IISAC as it is a bit bright, I used foam core vinyl clad sheet from Officeworks which was easy enough to work as it was stiff, but hard to cut with a sharp knife so I used tin snips and the jigsaw.
All up, with the perspex, LEDS, dimmer, switch and 12V plug, it cost me pretty close to $50, so I am chuffed it works so well.
Flats rock at removing the vignetting and uneven gradients across the image as well as the dust bunnies, so now i don't have to be so careful with trying to remove ALL the bits that may settle on the CLS filter, PLUS I get to see more of what I image without having to do contortions to remove the uneven gradients.
M42 is pretty bright though, so this one was relatively easy to process. I have some galaxy subs that I will try out soon, so I will see if I can reproduce the process.
Cheers
Chris