this is a target for astrofest this year with the 70mm, love what you got JJJ.
in levels, how about trying to adjust the indivitual channels of r g and B in photoshop - thats all i did - raise the black point only to the bottom of the curve. Love the image JJJ!!!!!!
go and get more data
my only real problem is the banding that is in the image - this has to have come from the camera