Hi Jim

Thanks, as always, for taking the trouble to explain your approach and techniques.

It's interesting that you use MaxIM, CCDStack and Photoshop to get the effect you're looking for.
I'm reasonably comfortable now with Photoshop curves and so on. I've also had a try with PixInsight, but the lack of documentation, coupled with a non-standard interface makes it hard going.

Thanks again for sharing the image and your technique!

Dick: Thanks for the pointer to SIMBAD - if I'm reading it right, it looks like that little 'smudge' is a galaxy called 'NGP9 F269-0543901' :-)

Russ