My first RGB target with this setup!

I fell in love with dusty targets last year when I started into AP. I attempted this a few times with my one shot color (ZWO294MC and QHY128C) and could never get the result I was imagining. 

When I got this setup going a few months ago, this was the first target I tried and the next day after stacking, I knew it was not going to be easy. 

I saw a coffee ring like artifact and went down the rabbit hole of searching anything on CN for related to reflections and took apart the imaging train and painted everything with a flat black pen. It still remained in my MasterLights. 

After spending a couple weeks, I reached out to Optec as I assumed the flip flat was way too bright (even at the lowest setting) when placed that close to the objective and after talking with them, I was told to check for any light leaks or reflections from the reducer/flattener. 

I took apart the imaging train again and as I was checking the filter placements within the filter wheel for any light leak, I took the reducer and held it against the light and could see shiny areas in the shape of ( ) that matched my MasterLights

I realized it was from the reducer and was now anxious on how to address it as it was inside the reducer. No other option, so took apart the reducer and placed the three glass elements in the sequence I removed and painted the edges of the glass with the flat black paint. After putting it back together, took some flats, shot a hour of Iris and tested and the reflections were gone!

It was a great relief that it went away and having done with my mosaic project, I started to pile on Lum data as much as I could in the past few clear nights. I was still anxious if I would be out of the woods and was pleasantly surprised the Lum flats I took from June still worked fine. 

It has been a while processing RGB targets, and this field is nothing but dust. I have tried to process carefully and realize I need to shoot more of RGB targets when possible to get better at processing (hence revision K, haha)! 

Hope you enjoy this result! Clear skies!