M1

Even with the images from Hubble I just don't see a crab.
I'm not sure which is more work. Packing everything up to go to a dark site or all the processing to remove light pollution. This is RRGB only. I took an hours worth of luminance but the red looked much better so I used it for the luminance. I think some Ha is in order. I didn't realize it looked so good in red. Lots of tools used here. Maxim 4 for imaging and combining, SD Mask
Fits liberator for Photoshop CS
Russ Croman's gradient Xterminator
Astronomy Actions for PS (some nice shortcuts)
CCDOPS for hot and cool pixel removal.
I still can't get that killer star color. Alot of the brighter stars reached near saturation levels, thats one problem.
Mewlon 250
ST2000 w/ standard filters
R 3x10
G 3x10
B 3x15

Attached Image:

Very nice.

Tom

You've got some good star colors in there, Brian. I equalized your black points and the star colors were more noticeable (see attached image).
You could use two other strategies to make them more intense:
---Process two different versions of your image, one for optimizing the nebula and the other for preserving star colors, then layer the best of each together.
---Early on in your processing with levels and curves, stop when the star colors lood good, select them out, process until the nebula looks good, and then feather.
You have some good detail in your M 1.
Good job.

dan kowall

Attached Image:

Beautiful shot Brian!!