M42 with Esprit 120 & Canon 60Da

Here is a shot of one of my favorite targets, M42. To quote Wikipedia "The Orion Nebula (also known as Messier 42, M42, or NGC 1976) is a diffuse nebula situated in the Milky Way, being south of Orion's Belt in the constellation of Orion. It is one of the brightest nebulae, and is visible to the naked eye in the night sky. M42 is located at a distance of 1,344 ± 20 light years and is the closest region of massive star formation to Earth. The M42 nebula is estimated to be 24 light years across. It has a mass of about 2,000 times that of the Sun. Older texts frequently refer to the Orion Nebula as the Great Nebula in Orion or the Great Orion Nebula.
The Orion Nebula is one of the most scrutinized and photographed objects in the night sky, and is among the most intensely studied celestial features.The nebula has revealed much about the process of how stars and planetary systems are formed from collapsing clouds of gas and dust. Astronomers have directly observed protoplanetary disks, brown dwarfs, intense and turbulent motions of the gas, and the photo-ionizing effects of massive nearby stars in the nebula."

Compare this image to an urban test image taken under a first quarter Moon from my front yard by clicking on the image. Click again to return to this shot.

Object	M42 Object RA50:35:16 Dec -5:23:05
Date	21 February 2020
Exposure	69 minutes (23 X 3 minute) (25 X 30 seconds for the core)
ISO	800
Camera	Canon 60Da DSLR
Optics	SkyWatcher Esprit 120 f/7 APO refractor with a focal length of 840 mm
Location	SCO - St. Croix, Nova Scotia
Processing	This image was processed entirely in Images Plus. Calibration, stacking, statistical filter applied to reduce noise before stretching. Masked stretching and split star processing used to enhance the image. Masked noise reduction using a frequency domain lowpass filter applied to the DSO layer and then it was recombined with the star layer. Image binned 2 by 2. Final sharpening, a slight star reduction and a masked red boost rounded out the processing. Since the 60Da has on sensor dark suppression no darks were used in the calibration.