[Gavin1234]

I started imaging sculpture and Orion last night. Orion is turning out reasonably well but sculpture is giving me grief.

Some people would have seen my posts when I was having problems with Helix. It seems like I’m having the same issues with sculpture. Basically way too much noise. I’m not getting anywhere near as much with Orion.

I’m thinking it might be because both helix and sculpture are similar in that they’re feint objects in the middle of a dark background? I don’t have the same issue with Orion or horsehead or m20 etc.

I’m hoping you can see in the attached pictures. Both are stacked in PI with the same flats, darks and bias. Orion has 18 x 5 min lights and sculpture has 26 x 5 min lights. Both given exactly the same treatment in PI just to make the visible, auto background extraction, scnr and a very quick and rough stretch. Orion gets better from this point whereas sculpture just gets more and more noise from here on regardless of what I do.