Hi Ballyhoo,
Some things:
1. You provided a permanently stretched color image that is a FIT file. I would have expected it a combined file that is a linear image in the XISF format.
2. Since the image is permanently stretched, your decisions are..well permanent. I think the perhaps the linear RGB (or L and RGB) would be more useful to see different "improvements" you might consider. For example, if you want to have the core show more stars...perhaps HDRMT would be helpful.
3. You mentioned extracting the luminance from this color image- but for what purpose? (What did you want to do next?) Once the information is clipped in either the Lumiance or the RGB images- there isn't much you can do to recover (detail or color). The adjustment needs to be a little earlier.
Is this the kind of information you were looking for?
-adam