I reworked the source files from this image and did a 2x drizzle with a crop in DSS. You can see more about this object at Wikipedia.

Note how the upper right area has some problems with alignment. This was because I wasn't aware of how important doing the drift alignment with all the equipment attached can be. Over the course of the series of exposures, there was field rotation and this appears as blurred stars. Remember, this is a half-size crop of the APS-C sensor. Imagine what it would be like with a Full Frame sensor! Also, the drizzle option seems to have added some strange "rings" around some of the brighter stars.

This is about 1 hour of lights with a ton of darks that have been accumulated over time.

I did a gradient subtraction, histogram stretching, and curves. I didn't see the need to do noise reduction as the image looks pretty good to me at the moment. PP with PixInsight LE.

Taken with the Pentax K10D and the Stellarvue SV4 scope at prime focus.

Here are the DSS settings:

Stacking mode: Custom Rectangle

Alignment method: Automatic

Drizzle x2 enabled

Cosmetic applied to hot pixels (Filter = 1 px, Detection Threshold = 99.0%)

Cosmetic applied to cold pixels (Filter = 1 px, Detection Threshold = 1.0%)

Stacking step 1 ->5 frames (ISO: 1600) - total exposure: 30 mn 4 s

RGB Channels Background Calibration: Yes

Per Channel Background Calibration: No

Method: Median

-> Offset: 24 frames (ISO: 1600) exposure: 1/4000 s

Method: Median Kappa-Sigma (Kappa = 2.00, Iterations = 5)

-> Dark: 16 frames (ISO : 1600) exposure: 6 mn 2 s

Method: Median Kappa-Sigma (Kappa = 2.00, Iterations = 5)

-> Dark Flat: 72 frames (ISO : 1600) exposure: 1/4000 s

Method:

Median Kappa-Sigma (Kappa = 2.00, Iterations = 5)

-> Flat: 24 frames (ISO: 1600) exposure: 1/4000 s

Method: Median Kappa-Sigma (Kappa = 2.00, Iterations = 5)

Stacking step 2 ->0 frames (ISO: 1600) - total exposure: -

RGB Channels Background Calibration: Yes

Per Channel Background Calibration: No

-> Offset: 24 frames (ISO: 1600) exposure: 1/4000 s

Method: Median Kappa-Sigma (Kappa = 2.00, Iterations = 5)

-> Dark: 30 frames (ISO : 1600) exposure: 30 s

Method: Median Kappa-Sigma (Kappa = 2.00, Iterations = 5)

-> Dark Flat: 72 frames (ISO : 1600) exposure: 1/4000 s

Method:

Median Kappa-Sigma (Kappa = 2.00, Iterations = 5)

-> Flat: 24 frames (ISO: 1600) exposure: 1/4000 s

Method: Median Kappa-Sigma (Kappa = 2.00, Iterations = 5)