Good stuff Mike. Glad to see you stepping outside your planetary comfort zone
M42 turned out well for you!
I plan to do some DSO work with the D40 at Magellan Observatory this coming long weekend - on some of Zane's perfectly aligned optical gear. I can't wait to see what the D40 can do - good or bad. I suspect that it's sensitive enough to be better than it seems to be given credit.
How much is there involved in stacking using ImagePlus? Are you stacking RAW or JPEG images? Is there a shareware equivalent that you know of?
Cheers
Chris