This part of the sky has always challenged me. If you shoot in narrowband to get detailed clouds of Hydrogen, you end up with horrible halos around Alnitak in OIII and no reflection nebula. If you shoot in wideband, you end up with less detail on the Hydrogen and glare artifacts from Alnitak.
So I just gathered lots of both narrowband and LRGB data and used them both. Processing notes:
Processed L and Ha data with deconvolution separately, then added them together in Pixelmath, using some math to blend in more narrowband in a radius around glare artifacts in L, and more wideband around the reflection nebula.
Produced both an RGB image from RGB filters, and a synthetic RGB image from narrowband filters, using the formula:
R = 0.5*Ha + 0.5*S2
G = 0.5*O3 + 0.094*Ha
B = 0.295*O3 + 0.1*Ha
RGB and Synthetic RGB were combined in Pixelmath in a similar manner, focusing on the synthetic RGB in areas of glare and real RGB around the reflection nebula.
The resulting combined RGB was then hit with my synthetic luminance image. After that the usual local contrast enhancement, sharpening, and color balance stuff was done.
In total over 43 hours of data was incorporated into this image. Shot entirely unguided thanks to the Paramount MyT, in my Bortle-5 backyard.
See
https://boldly-going.com/2021/12/30/going-deep-with-the-horsehead-and-flame/ for full resolution.
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