In November I started this project with a view to doing an image of this target that showed way more dust than I had ever shown before in previous images of this target. Added to that I wanted it to be outstanding from the norm (debatable really but a good goal) and it has to be noise free.
I have actually gathered over 50 hours of data on this image but have rejected a lot of data due to a rotation problem and due to FWHM rejection (about 10% of the data rejected).
Overall I am pretty pleased with the outcome and the goals I set, but am sure there is more that can be done. For now though here is 27.9 hours of M42 and the Running man
Click here for larger resolution image.