Galaxy Season is here, testing new gear

Hello all,

In past years, I've often skipped out on galaxy season since imaging galaxies isn't really my thing. But completing the Messier Marathon last month has given me a bit more appreciation for imaging galaxies, and I've resolved to shoot some of the major Messier galaxies that I haven't before. So here is my first shot at it. This is the Leo Triplet. The two galaxies on the left of the image are M66 (top) and M65 (bottom). On the right, the edge-on galaxy is NGC 3638, colloquially known as the 'Hamburger Galaxy.'

This is just 2 hours of integration, captured with a telescope and mount that were brand new to me (both picked up at NEAF for testing/reviews). Also the first time I've shot pure broadband with the QHY miniCAM8 mono. This combo worked 'okay.' My guess (needs more testing to rule out human error) is I won't actually recommend a pixel scale (1.1"/px) this demanding on the EQ-AL55i, as I had to throw out about 12 frames due to elongation or doubled stars.

Tech. details on Astrobin: https://app.astrobin.com/i/g5943s

Gear used
-Airy Disk APO 96mm Triplet Refractor https://bit.ly/4jm7UQM
-Sky-watcher EQ-AL55i https://bit.ly/42Dkd3W
-QHY miniCAM8 https://bit.ly/4jgjg8O

Processing description
In PixInsight:
-WeightedBatchPreProcessing Script to handle Calibration, Registration, Integrations
-ChannelCombination to combine Red, Green, Blue channels
-AutomaticBackgroundExtraction with a function degree of 1 (likely not needed here as there was really no visible gradient)
-ImageSolver and PhotometricColorCalibration (default values)
-Russel Croman's BlurXterminator (Stellar 0.1, non-stellar 0.5)
-Starnet2 (separate stars from galaxies)
-GeneralizedHyperbolicStrech (stretch the galaxies with GHS and the stars with arcsinh)
-RangeSelection (made a mask of the galaxy cores and applied it to the galaxies image)
-HDRMultiscaleTransform (5 layers, scaling function: Small Scale 32)
In Photoshop:
-Curves
-Saturation boost (overall + extra on Blues, Cyans, Reds) with Luminance Mask applied
-Camera Raw Filter (noise reduction, color noise reduction)
-Screen blend stars
-Export -> Save for Web...

Clear skies,
Nico