This is a rescanned and reprocessed image from the November 99 dark period. The previous scanning job was done with the old HP Photosmart printer, it was very noisy in the dark areas and detail was lost on the bright areas. Also there were odd random prismatic reflections around all the bright stars, I attributed these reflections to my off-axis guider but after rescanning with my new scanner I find all the reflections are gone, the noise is gone and the highlight details are preserved.

This image is a composite of 6 images, four 30 minutes exposures and two 10 minutes exposures were combined to attempt to record the full range of this beautiful and bright nebula.

Film was Kodak E200 slide film, pushed three stops (home processed, 14 minutes in E6 developer), little grain is evident in the original slides with an 8x loupe.

This image used the full range of image processing techniques, for the first time in my astrophotography learning period (I'm still working at it) , including color correction and selective levels enhancement of certain areas, also I replaced the burned out core of the 30 minute exposures with two 10 minute exposures.. I could have used shorter exposures since even the 10 minute shots have a burned out core. I used Jerry Lodrigus excellent tutorial for this, I suggest you check it out:

http://www.astropix.com

The blue nebula above M42 is called the Running Man Nebula if you look at it in this orientation, if you rotate the image 90 degrees to the left then its called the Ghost Nebula, zoom in and try it.

This image is an example of the recording power of E200 slide film of both blue and red nebulas.

A couple of problems: One  was composition, the objects were not centered on the slide properly.. the Running Man Nebula was centered and M42 is near the edges of the field, with some coma evident (note the quality of the stars in the RM Nebula vs the upper right hand corner of the image. Focus is not good, look at the double diffraction pattern on the bright star below M42. There were some slight tracking problems and there may have been some dew problems on the lenses, it was a humid night.