Hello Dave,
Yes, as said before the Orion Nebula (M42) can be really hard to get right.
Many many moons ago I experimented using HDR (before it became fashionable !!) onM42 and here is the result of combining 11 exposures using Photomatix (no stacking etc) the 11 exposure times were 1024 sec, 512 sec, 256 sec down to 1 sec and here is the result:
http://lh6.ggpht.com/_nmcM5hLJalE/TL...0/NGC_1976.jpg
What am I saying ? Have a go using HDR.
Jeremy.
Addition:
The camera is a Canon EoS 350D with a 6" refractor.