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Hi Troy
Good question but I think it is a bit like the "how long is a piece of string?".
I have noticed a large range of colours for M42 depending on what camera is being used. For instance, the colours I get from my Meade DSI2 camera tend to be brighter than the colours I have seen from Canon DLSRs.
I think that the main thing is to take images of length that will not cause too much burn out of bright stars and then take lots of images (experience will tell) so that when you stack them and stretch the image to expose the nebulosity, the dimmer nebulosity does not get noisy. The colours will then be how your colour camera interpreted the nebulosity. The tricky part comes if you may decide to "enhance" the colours in the "colour enhance" section of your adjustment program, then you can make it any colour you like although most adjust until they get colours that appear to be right from what they have seen in other images. It partly is a matter of taste, some like subdued colours others like bright colours etc. The colour of the nebulosity is often caused by exitation of gas such as red when hydrogen is involved. Overall the amateur processing of nebulosity images is as much an art as a science.
"Don't worry - be happy!"
Cheers Peter
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