I finally found some time to look into post processing on my tries in Astrophotography. Since i have still a lot to learn and didn’t want to spend a lot of money i choose GIMP. First because it’s free and second because i already know how to use it from other projects. Since i hadn’t much time and the weather was cloudy i used my old picture from 2022.
The final result (right side) is a clear improvement from the original (left side).
First i reduced the shadows and highlights, to get rid of the blur and make the features more visible in the exposed parts. Then i added a little bit more contrast to the picture and in the end i put the sharpen(unsharp mask) filter on top of the image. I am surprised how a picture can get enhanced with just some simple steps. I hope i can put my new knowledge to use for something i plan this August.