Ok, here is what I ended up with in 1.3.5 with a very quick & standard workflow;
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- M42PIHighSig.jpg (184.19 KiB) Viewed 10448 times
The color is (unfortunately) typical for a CLS filter - a lack of yellow (as this part of the spectrum is filtered out). Nevertheless, different interesting areas with distinctly differing chemical makeups can be clearly distinguished - the slighter green of the OIII rich core, the dominant red H-alpha line and the H-Beta at the fringes. Despite the lack of yellow, there is a hint of a star color continuum as well (red->orange->yellow->white->blue).
What is really cool is that your unguided tracking was so good that you actually managed to resolve the trapezium stars individually - very, very nice indeed!
So here is what I did;
--- Auto Develop
Default parameters. To see what we got.
Large red bias, quite a bit of noise, oversampling.
--- Bin
I decide to bin the data due to noise and oversampling.
Parameter [Scale] set to [(scale/noise reduction 35.38%)/(798.89%)/(+3.00 bits)]
--- Wipe
I Wipe with default settings, but I discover some (faint) stacking related oddities at the edges. So I undo and launch the crop module.
--- Crop
Parameter [X1] set to [16 pixels]
Parameter [Y1] set to [16 pixels]
Parameter [X2] set to [1717 pixels (-10)]
Parameter [Y2] set to [1113 pixels (-20)]
--- Wipe
Back in Wipe.
I decide to set parameter [Dark Anomaly Filter] to [2 pixels] just in case the noise causes any bad dips in the background, which could potentially confuse Wipe.
--- Auto Develop
I use AutoDev with an ROI over the M42 complex to optimise the global stretch for M42 mainly (since it's the most prominent featuring object).
To make AutoDev ignore fine noise, I set parameter [Ignore Fine Detail <] to [2.9 pixels]
You'll notice how AutoDev really allocates dynamic range in the most optimal way. The dynamic range differences in M42 are *huge*, yet AutoDev manages to show both the faint outer edges of the complex and show the *much* brighter core.
--- Deconvolution
Deconvolution did a lot for your image, though I had to tweak the autogenerated mask a little to prevent ringing artifacts from occuring (I used the 'Stars' preset in Mask->Auto, instead of Decon's Auto Generate feature, then Grow x2, and Invert). I gave special treatment to the trapezium, so that the 'gap' wasn't too big.
The Decon default values did the rest!
--- Wavelet Sharpen
Created a mask with the brightest stars masked out (again, Mask->Auto, Decon, Grow, Grow, Invert).
Parameter [Amount] set to [175 %]
Parameter [Small Detail Bias] set to [89 %]
It did a nice job of accentuating some detail.
--- Color
Default parameters.
--- Wavelet De-Noise
Parameter [Read Noise Compensation] set to [1.99 %]
And that's it! I rotated the image for the more typical way of presenting M42 and M43, but, like almost all things done here, that's up to personal taste.
Any idea what would cause the purple dots at the center of your stars? I noticed them in even the linear data...
) Very good for 15 secs unguided. It looks nice and smooth too. Absolutely nothing to be ashamed about. It does suffer from the progressive desaturation problem (the core is rich in green OIII, it's not white, star color is not apparent) most PI images suffer from, but that's a different story.
