Funny, I looked at the image first (naughty I know) before reading your blurb and my first impression was ah huh! "the shadow highlights tool" this filter gives a very characteristic look to an image when used anywhere near strongly. I have never really found where the right balance is but I try not to push it to a point where I can see that shadow highlights was used but that's just me (hey I try for blue backgrounds on purpose too...so go figure
).
That said, very interesting and expansive field of a rarely imaged area, very nice work on some very faint stuff...I enjoyed the view of this outer suburb of Sarah's Nebula
.
Mike