Wow! Great job, @blessingscaptured. 😀 This is a beautiful picture. I really want to try my hand at capturing some star trails. After looking at this picture, you’ve spurred me on to want to try it (really!) soon! 🙂
For me personally, I like how in the original, unedited picture the tree is darker. I think the tree being lighter in your edit, draws too much attention to it, when the main subject is really the sky. But, I do like how the sky has more vibrancy in the edited one. Perhaps you could try doing the same edit on the sky, but put a radial filter around the tree to exclude if from the edit or use a brush and paint in the sky with the edit, or you could even try painting in some darkness on the tree so that the tree is even darker than the original (more of a silhouette). I feel like if the tree was darker you would get more of depth of field – more of an ‘I’m looking through the trees’ feeling as opposed to feeling as if the tree and sky are touching. Just some suggestions, not sure how they would work out in practise! 😀
I like how you’ve used the tree as framing – I love framing! 😉 Perhaps if you were to do a retake of this shot, you could try not to cut of the tree in the bottom left corner or maybe you’ve cropped it of in post processing.
BTW, on your profile I noticed you’re on Lighstock like me! You have some beautiful pictures on there. I hope it goes really well for you! 😀