Well I must give a big thanks to Ivo Jager (author of StarTools) for taking my data from NGC5128 and working it through StarTools for me as part of my learning curve. I thought I'd done just about everything I could until I saw what Ivo managed with his software. It certainly gave me some food for thought and many tips on how to get the best out of StarTools.
The thing that struck me was the amount of resolution in my data I was missing with my processing. It tells me that I have the equipment I need to get the job done and if I can get the light pollution under control (I just need to add my UHC-S filter to the imaging train) then the sky's the limit - now isn't that appropriate!
I've attached Ivo's version for people's perusal.
Cheers,
Mario
PS Ivo, this is the first version you sent cropped and made to look like the second version which is at home...
Whoa! If I knew this was going to be posted on IIS, I would've maybe reduced noise a tad
Still, once the (extreme) light pollution & vignetting was removed, your data was actually pretty good. Focus was spot-on, tracking was pretty darn close and the smallest detail in the image really required a single pixel after some deconvolution. Your scope and the QHY8L seem well matched and you'll be really laughing once you drop that MPCC and filter back in!
The thing that struck me was the amount of resolution in my data I was missing with my processing. It tells me that I have the equipment I need to get the job done and if I can get the light pollution under control (I just need to add my UHC-S filter to the imaging train) then the sky's the limit - now isn't that appropriate!
This is a good insight to have Mario. It is important to have confidence in the data. The challenge with processing is knowing what the data is capable of and working within its bounds. As has been said before here, great data with great processing can provide an excellent image. Poor data with great processing can only provide a mediocre image. You end up spending more time attempting to hide the issues in the data when in reality you should be spending more time enhancing the data.
Ivo's rendition is an improvement on the original post. Keep at it. I like to think of it along the line of "We learn by doing, not by mistakes". Hope to see more of your work soon.
If I knew this was going to be posted on IIS, I would've maybe reduced noise a tad 
