dementedgr

Stunning, absolutely stunning... As it has already been said, words fail me! Trying to find a part of the image without nebulosity, nope nope nope... Please make this a print, you already have my money for the 8m one!

Here is my first DSO as well, which else other than M42... First proper light on my gear as well after way too long... Very bright target, I was amazed about how much data i managed to capture in a single 30" @ ISO 3200 (4" @ ISO 3200 for the trapezium) with an (unmodded) 1200D attached on a C8 Edge on an AVX mount at f/10! Almost everything was done wrong (no intervalometer or computer camera control, non calibrated polar scope, no ASPA, unguided, shot at JPEG and the list goes on) and this is one of the best framing-wise of many shots, with the least camera shutter shake as well. Actually I am pretty excited about that shot, I almost fell off my chair when I saw the 1st one popping on the camera screen...Processed in GIMP 2.8 (no 16-bit) so the best part is that it will be hard to get any worse than that! Too bad the weather turned horrible on Saturday & Sunday... Thanks for watching!

Words cannot describe your achievement... You have raised the bar REALLY high indeed sir! Seriously, who thought just a few years ago that "amateurs" would be taking this kind of astrophotos??? Sir Isaac Newton must be proud of you for making the best out of his mirror thingy!