Cheers! I initially thought it was dodgy flats, too. But, I used DBE in PixInsight to extract the background in both the RGB and luminance images. It removed the gradient that was there and it's left me with this. Perhaps it is an artefact? I'm not sure. Might need to reprocess and see if it pops up again? Having said that, these same sets of flats have been used on other images that I've been working on and they seem to be void of this... who knows?
H
Hmmm? dynamic background extraction huh? I dunno...never have trusted that...bit like deconvolution I recon it might put in as much as it removes There are many wide field examples of this area out there but I can't find one that shows these features can anyone else?
It's the two large faint brownish vertical swaths or bands on the left and right sides of H's image? I mean, yes, it does look kinda real but I have just never seen them before... and it's not as though you have done a super long exposure from a super dark sky or anything (although over 20hrs is nothing to sneeze at)...oh well, as you say, who knows, could be like my mysterious NGC 1232 jet
Regardless though it is a great looking image and I hope I don't sound like I am picking on the image, I'm not ...just intrigued
I think the dust on either side is real.
I took a similar photo 2 years ago, same fov and composition, and I could see the dust I think you are referring to.
Mine was processed with Photoshop CS2 so no PI involved.
I took into consideration what Mike Sidonio mentioned about the artificial halo surrounding the object. I went and looked through my preprocessed data files and noticed that the individual RGB files had "ABE" in their names! I had used PixInsight's ABE rather than carefully-placed DBE samples. The haloing was evident in my individual RGB ABE masters when I opened the files up and had a proper look at them.
So, I just spent a few minutes tonight re-doing the data and using DBE instead of ABE. The end result is a flat image that looks even greater than the original process.
This is straight out of PixInsight and needs to go to Photoshop for final processing.
I was creating drizzle data and I inadvertantly trashed all my green data, with no backups! So, I did the traditional upsample of RGB by 2, instead of being able to drizzle it; drizzle has given me amazing results with other data sets I've been working with. Oh, well; I'll just have to recapture this next year.
Spectacular image H. I am currently working on a mosaic of this object, and I must admit it is a very challenging object to process. You have done an amazing job of showing how beautiful an object it really is. I was doing some reading about it the other day (as I do with most objects I image), and its actually one of the closest star forming regions to us. That main dust cloud is full of very young protostars apparently. Must be visible in IR or something, otherwise how would they know? Anyway, awesome shot mate, with excellent processing.
Great work H - I was looking over your original image tonight worrying about the dust on the left side of the frame amongst other things. This image seems more balanced, and you've achieved a wonderful subtle processing of the dust.
The blues seems just a bit overexposed in this latest one?
Heck, enough of that - stunning image
Lovely field H, so packed of stars that it is always difficult to process the dust keeping them tiny I guess a vertical framing would have helped to image of bit more of the long dust tail of corona australis, but it is very nice as well in landscape as you did it
Clear skies
Marco
Rob, yep, this was a rough process straight out of PixInsight; I will be mindful of all the channels as I process it thoroughly.
Sadly, I won't be attending Astrofest. Too much on with work. I don't have any leave (bring on long service leave in April!) and never even thought about asking for a domestic visa. One day...
I like this reprocess and it really shows the nebulosity well. Dust colour is very nice and star colour is ok but I think you have a little too much magenta in the star colours. If that was toned down a little you would have one hell of an image of this region.
BTW your full res image which is linked to the smaller resolution image on your website is of the old image I think. It is a completely different colour in the dust.
I recon it might put in as much as it removes 
There are many wide field examples of this area out there but I can't find one that shows these features 
can anyone else? 
One day...
