Hi Rod,
thanks so much for the great information!
Your images are great, I agree the M42 looks like the best one, the colours are fantastic.
I'm not sure what could be up with your DX slewing off like that during polar alignment. When I do the All Star align the mount just slews a small distance away and then returns to star Im using to correct the alt-az. I got my DX from the USA and I had to move the az peg on the mounts base plate over to the other side.
My aim for the next new moon is to do some LRGB on my mono QSI583, targeting Lagoon and Triffid in the one image. I hope the colours come out half as good as your M42. The little Stellarvue 80, combined with a 0.8 provides a very wide field, but I will be wanting to do some longer focal length imaging before too long.
cheers
Nick