—
I took these photos using this gear and methods. I took 15 of each area, and also took 15 DARKS (photos same settings same night same temp same camera with the lens cap on, to produce a record of the noise inherent to the camera CCD to remove with software later.)
I ran the RAW photo files through Photoshop using a script to batch turn them all into TIFFs, with no compression and keeping the sizes the same. I used this tutorial on YouTube.
I used the free program Deep Sky Stacker, using this YouTube tutorial. I did the thing where I ran “Register Checked Photos”, and told it to only use 80% best photos. Then it ran. Took 15 to 30 min for each of the two sets.
Then I ran the resulting TIFF outputs through Adobe Lightroom Classic to turn up the contrast, de-haze, blacks, color saturation saturation a bit, and saved the profile as a starting point next time.
I tried auto-removing the little bit of purple fringing, but kept it in, it makes the stars look a little more like jewels. lol.
Fun fact: DSS counts the stars before it runs. There are about 60,000 distinct visible stars in each of these photos.
I got a RedCat telescope so things might get even more interesting soon.