Hi hobbit,
It is definitely processing. With 3.8hours you should have tremendous data to work with.
The image appears to be severely over-stretched(too much contrast) with the black and white points clipped.
I'm not familiar with Maxim, but I know AstroArt can sometimes display an image similar to this after stacking and integrating, requiring me to adjust the histogram.
The following page is about stretching in Maxim:
http://starizona.com/acb/ccd/softwar...basicproc.aspx
But also take a look at the following links about Histograms:
http://www.astropix.com/PFA/SAMPLE3/SAMPLE3.HTM
http://www.lefevre.darkhorizons.org/...orialchap4.htm
http://www.sgastrophotography.com/Sg...hy/Levels.html