A lot of issues here Shadow. If you look at the edges you'll see these white or lighter areas - that's likely a result of maxing the shadow slider to the right, and the highlights to the left. I use to do it all the time, and never really noticed. To get the same effect I'd suggest using dual processing of your raw and luminosity masks. The second is that while your histogram probably looks pretty good here, the color balance is tilted yellow/orange, while you've probably done this purposefully I think it would be useful to consider where the color is applied - the shadows typically won't take on this much saturation. The third, and probably biggest thing I see is that you need two brackets to accomplish your excellent idea (the sunstar) without having a ton of AE artifacts (like you have). The way to do this is take one shot with your finger in front of the sun, and then blend that shot into this shot. The final thing I'd say is that this would probably benefit from dual or even triple processing the raw file. Meaning, process the lights, use the same color scheme/balance, and then blend those in with a luminosity mask, then process the darks cooler, bring that in with a darks mask, and finally process the sky/sun, and the interior of the cave separately.
