Learning how to take maximum advantage of an OSC camera...

Processing had super-pixel deBayering after calibration, then star align stack, and drizzle integrate back to 2x resolution for all subsequent processing.

Field stars were reduced with 3x3 Erosion, then noise reduced, then MRS sharpening, initial slight stretch of saturation, and SCNR green reduction, all applied in the color corrected linear image.

Then masked stretch to nonlinear, followed by curve stretch in RGB and Saturation, and final spatial downsample by 2x to original deBayered resolution.

The nebular details are really brought up much better by applying the sharpening, after noise reduction, in the linear image. Doing this in an already stretched image is less effective because the features will have been dynamic-range compressed.

I found that the VNG deBayering, that I had been using, caused stars to exhibit a blue-red fringing, as though seen at the edge of a refracting element. Drizzle integration further amplifies that fringing, so that the R and B planes were several (3-4) pixels displaced, and needed to be re-aligned in the final integrated image.

But we have no refractive surfaces in our C8 HyperStar. Using superpixel deBayering produces fringe-free star images. Subsequent drizzle integration does not alter the fringe-free state.

So I claim that the method used in producing this image takes maximum advantage of the allowable system resolution, in terms of both spatial and magnitude resolution.

There remains a faint background quilt pattern imposed across the entire image. I think that is due to my method of field star reduction with morphological erosion and a 3x3 solid kernel, followed by the smearing effects of TGV Denoising in the linear image, then stretched to visible dynamic range. I will attempt to find a way to reduce that effect.

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Rev B: A more honest representation with sharpening applied in the linear image just after field star erosion. That brings back many of the stars that previously blended into the background, leading to the waffle pattern seen in the original version background.

This is a very challenging image because of the huge number of field stars which tends to obscure the very faint nebular regions, especially in the East side (left in image).

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Rev C: Just thrown in to show what the original image actually looks like. No field star reduction here.