Orion Nebula Images

This is my first attempt to capture the Orion Nebula from my backyard in town using a C-11 and Sony NEX-5N. Considering all the light pollution and moist air, I'm happy to have gotten these images. Since my camera is at prime focus, I didn't have any way to guide the exposure while tracking with the Losmandy G-11. So I made an attempt to polar align more carefully and to train the mount to correct for periodic worm-gear error. Even with these efforts I only obtained two images (out of a dozen or so) that had minimal trailing during the one minute exposures. So I was only able to stack 2 images with DeepSkyStacker. That program is fairly complex for me to use, particularly in its post-stacking controls. But I suppose I'll get used to it like working with Registax. Both images were at 1760mm F.L., with f/6.3 focal reducer. I had the dew heater on the dewshield turned on high. So while there was no problem with dew, the star images are bloated due to the disturbance from all the heat. The first two images are single JPEGs.

Orion Nebula, 1760mm f/6.3, ISO 800, 61 sec. exposure, post processed with PS Elements

This next image has burned the highlights, but is somewhat bettered exposed for the fainter parts of the nebula.

Orion Nebula, 1760mm f/6.3, ISO 1600, 67 sec. exposure, post process with PS Elements

Finally the last image is a stack of just two JPG images. I struggled with the controls on DeepSkyStacker, so the colors are different that the single JPGs. But to my eye, the stack produced finer details.

Orion Nebula, 1760mm f/6.3, stack of 2 JPGs, 800 ISO, 61 sec. exposure, post processed w/ DSS & PSE

Total exposure is 2 min. 2 sec. Since my version of Photoshop Elements (2.0) does not support 16-bit Tiff images, the DSS output was converted, to 8-bit (I assume).

Comments, critique, suggestions are welcomed.

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Best Regards,
Russ