I shot this image on October 19th, 2011. Seeing was not real good and the surface detail left a lot to be desired... But the Prominences were really nice, so I didn't want to trash the image.
I decided to crop out the surface detail with a black mask, kind of like a coronagraph image. Then the huge expanse of black sky looked pretty bare so I added the lens flare effect.
Usually I strive to make my images appear as they do in the scope or in the real world, but sometimes I just like to let my imagination fly and let the image take me where it will.