StarTools

this was a tough one. NGC 6384. I don't see this imaged all that much. I may work on this some more.
http://astrob.in/104807/0/
NGC 6384 is a barred spiral galaxy some 150,000 light-years across, located some 80 million light-years away in the constellation of Ophiuchus, the Serpent Bearer. It is speeding away from us at roughly 1680 kilometers per second.
The positioning of NGC 6384, not far from the centre of the Milky Way on the sky, means that it is somewhat obscured by our galaxy’s dust and stars. Combined with the galaxy’s low surface brightness, NGC 6384 is a bit of a challenging target for astrophotographers.
Che

Much improved version here http://astrob.in/104807/B/

Cheman wrote:Much improved version here http://astrob.in/104807/B/

Love that version! Fantastic detail, and great colors.

My only nitpick (I always have at least one ) Would be the star rounding you applied (correct?).
There is a trick to make them blend in a little better (which I should've made part of the algorithm.. ).

When you've rounded your stars, launch the Layer module. Launch the Mask editor and 'Grow' your mask about 2 pixels. Then back in the Layer module, set Blend Mode to Lighten and apply some Gaussian blur and some Mask Fuzz (both to taste) until the stars blend in nicely.

thanks for that tip Ivo. The bright stars have been a problem for me. In the repair module, I use the redistribute, core is average location in order to even out the star color of the brighter stars. I''ve yet to use the layer module but will definately give this a try and post my results.
Che

I tried a quick try of your tip. When masking, I didnt take the time to make sure all the stars were separated, so some of them merged, but the brighter ones especially do seem better. I will play with this more in the future I am sure Here is my quick result, Che

That is excellent Che - they blend in beautifully!