Quote:
Originally Posted by MLParkinson
... with each passing night I began to think that at least some of the features in the background emissions were real. The dark halo surrounding the bright inner bubble may be the void blown out by an earlier, more ancient episode of intense stellar wind ...
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Yes! Someone thinking like an experimental scientist! Not just content with a beautiful image but thinking about what it might mean, and then coming up with a plan to test that hypothesis: moon and cloud gradients won't always be in the same place. Even light pollution gradients will move as one photographs in different parts of the sky.
I don't think you have anything to fix here, but just in the spirit of your investigation: Take another set of raw unprocessed flats, pretend that they're astronomical images, and process them with your existing master flat. Use the same stretches that you used on the Gourd. That will give you a sense of the reliability of the background nebulosity.
Agree with Fred that a tiny bit less noise reduction might produce less posterizing of the shock fronts. Accepting a slightly gritty background and letting the eye extract the detail might be a acceptable trade-off. A difficult call.
Loving the good work. Inspired by your and Andy's efforts, I want to have a shot at this next year, but it's going to be a 4 panel mosaic.
Best,
Mike