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Aaron,
Im wondering if you are somehow getting additive noise in your workflow
What is the calibration process you are using ?
Dark noise in a DSLR is difficult to control, because each image may have a different amount of dark noise and that dark noise can be related to heat whoch often flows from one side or corner of the CCD chip and migrates its way across the frame - meaning each successive light frame has more noise and different noise in different places than the last - so dark frame subtraction might be difficult
Im not familar with your camera so cant advise on whats best or how your camera behaves, but obviously a chilled astro camera is better becasue it can control this to a very manageable level.
But selecting the correct statistical process for your calibration, stacking, master darks etc can be critical.
You say no Bias or Flats - anyone here familiar with the levels of Bias noise for that camera ? . . . and the best process.
Going longer using an chilled camera allows you to capture the faint nebulosity without the big penalties of dark noise (which gets larger with exposure time and temperature) - the problem with unmodded DSLRs
This blows out the stars but you can correct this in your processing workflow and by using the right statistical tool effectively use the values of the stars from the shorter frames.
If you like astro imaging and think you can see yourself going further - then I think its a very wise idea to bite the bullet and get PixInsight now - the learning curve is worth the effort, but its a vastly different (better) path than Photoshop !
You dont chop a tree down with tooth pick or even a pen knife ! - Use an Axe or get a Chainsaw - having the right tools for the job makes life a lot easier and will save you valuable time in the processing as well as shorten your learning curve. - But its is still a leap of faith.
There are plenty of really easy to follow tutorials for OSC and DSLR astro imaging - Harry's PixInsight Tutorials used to be the good oil, but there are others now. You can just follow them step by step and get useful results.
Gradient removal and white star balancing is almost a doddle in PixInsight.
Are you checking the seeing/tracking/guiding quality of your subs ? - check the FWHM of your subs - get rid of the bad ones so you arent introducing extra noise into the workflow by a few rampant bad subs !
Good luck - I am sure you will work out what you have done and use those same subs to extract some good images
Rally
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