The HDR method I am working on is finally doing what I want. That is to get vastly different luminosities in the same eight bit image. As you can see the main stars of Crux are not blown out and have colour. The faint or dim dust in the Coalsack is showing it's underlying structure. All other faint stars have colour. A faint PN is also well defined.
I have to post large images otherwise jpg artefacts are all that you will see.
Full res image here 10MB.
http://d1355990.i49.quadrahosting.co...xcoalmos08.jpg
The method is not perfect but I am getting closer. If I can get this sort of result with a twelve bit DSLR, imagine what a top astro CCD would produce.
Bert