hi george,
looks like you've got real colour in there now! excellent, i knew it would be something to do with your settings must be a relief (I was going to suggest trying DSS). to the image, the blue channel is clipped and also the red in i think in one of the images. its good to have a look at levels and curves, and select the drop down box and change it from RGB, to the individual channel and do each one separate - rather than stretching all 3 at once.
if you are feeling really adventuress and want to have a go at the stars, go to EDIT, then TRANSFORM, then WARP to alter the edges, you'll need to crop it afterwards (you may have to SELECT ALL first. But i would have a crack at the data again and concentrate on the levels and curves and deal with one channel at a time.
But you've made some good progress
Cheers
Russ