The exterior lens hood on the 300mm lens has really made a difference. It is the equivalent of very good baffling that a high quality telescope has and even high quality lenses lack. It increases contrast and signal to noise. The Sag Sco mosaic is proof of this. I have tried to get the colours 'correct' by using the same parameters to process the LMC and SMC data as I used for the Sag Sco mosaic.
I took a quick set of survey data of the LMC and SMC. Gradients were a problem as all of the data was not collected at or near the zenith. It does give an idea though what is possible.
LMC image 4MB
http://d1355990.i49.quadrahosting.co...0_06/lmc_c.jpg
SMC image 5MB
http://d1355990.i49.quadrahosting.co...0_06/smc_c.jpg
The dust is becoming quite visible in both images. I used 15s, 30s, 60s and 120s exposures. There is still enough head room in the sensor to go as far as 240s to get the really faint stuff.
I also made an image with both galaxies at the same scale.
All we need is clear skies.
Bert