M27 - First Prime Try

I have been taking only telephoto and wide-angle piggyback shots up until now. Purchase of a WOZ66 inspired me to crank up PHD and try a prime focus shot. Attached is a crop of M27, 30x60sec, dark subtracted, with a hit of curve and increased color saturation in Nebulosity. Moon was just past new, and this is from my backyard, not a dark site. Looks like the sky is a bit red. Processing advice appreciated.
Ed

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Hi Ed,
Your sky is indeed a bit red. The first thing that you need to do is to normalize your background.
In most cases, you want to adjust the black points of each channel so that they fall just to the left of the main peaks on the histogram. The attached image shows this adjustment.
Your 60 second subexposure will give you good star color, but longer subs are appropriate to show M27 in detail.

dan

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There is another try, this time with the black point and white pint set an a bit more sky. It still need more subs, but I think I am making progress.
Ed

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