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Heart nebula, Stock DSLR.

Data from BirdrockAstronomy on reddit astrophotography:
https://www.reddit.com/r/astrophotography/comments/5wmh8j/heart_nebula_stock_dslr/
The image is is copyright BirdrockAstronomy, pocessed here with permisssion.

Processing:

Followed: Astrophotography Image Processing Basic Work Flow

Raw convert with lens profile (just selected Canon 300 f/4 (looked like a good match) to reduce light fall-off), daylight white balance.
(This took ~2 minutes of my time, ~20 minutes on my old computer to compute.)

No darks, no flats, no bias.

Stacked in DSS. No calibration selected, Save DSS stack result as 16-bit tif with embed stretch but do not apply.
(This took less than 1 minute of my time, more than 1 hour on my old computer to compute.)

Crop off the edges from the DSS stack.
(This took less than 1 minute of my time.)

rnc-color-stretch: rootpower = 30, rootpower2 = 3, scurve1
(This took less than 1 minute of my time, 8 minutes on my laptop to compute.)

The flat field was not ideal, plus the light pollution gradient added a complication so it took some curves wore to derive the final image. There was one apparent dust mote which was correct by a simple feathered selection and brightened. (15 minutes of my time.)

Result:

The camera has plenty of H-alpha response. The result could be much better with a good flat field, and easier to get to the final result.

March4, 2017