Hi,
...Still processing data from a few previous runs. I sat on this one for a while given Greg recently posted a great image on the target and I'm not one to show competing images. So, here's my rendition of the scene;
NGC2736 - Pencil Nebula (aka Herschel's Ray)
Less than perfect data making gradients a tall order to deal with. Feels a little too turbulent for my tastes, but I was keen to avoid making it uber smooth like plastic. That said good detail was obtained in the Ha data set. No OIII acquired. The blue and green channels were relatively strong to begin with on the RGB combine, however to give them more punch I blended (Ha+L) in to green at 30% and blue at 20% which was selectively masked. Less than ideal, but worked out once channels were balanced. Apologies if this upsets the imaging purist, but in this instance it wasn't the journey, but the destination.
Enjoy!
Cheers