Great image Gary.
The image is well composed and flows well. I enjoy the dark lane that spreads diagonally from center to lower right. It’s a nice feature and provides an interesting perspective. I tried rotating the image a few ways. I actually prefer the image flipped horizontally – this puts the tight star cluster up in the right top corner and serves as a reference point. This may upset the composition purist, but when your goal is taking pretty pictures there are no boundaries.
You’re right on the money regarding the blue nebulosity. While its there, it is typically not as strongly pronounced as it is in your image. I attribute this to background sky neutralisation or lack of. You could perhaps slightly boost yellow in colour balance - shadows, but be careful as you’ll then introduce hints of green (easily seen when equalized). You may also lose some nebulosity as a result. So you could try an alternative method of duplicating the original layer, then only dropping the blue curves and blending the original. You could also select the area you want to drop, but you need to fine-tune your feathering to ensure you don’t affect other details in the image.
Stars look round and tight. I would have thought the small star cluster would resolve better – this could simply be seeing related or your image sampling (arcsec/pix). Do you use any form of deconvolution in your processing routine (either LR or MaxEntropy)? This may bring out subtle details after you’ve made an initial data stretch, but before you’re final stretch. Don’t stretch to your final level immediately as this may result in clipping with other processing events. I think your star colour balance is looking good.
Good work and look forward to seeing more.
