Great stuff! Can you list or post a picture of your set-up? You don't mention the lens/telescope combo or focal length/magnification factor, though your description of the "winner" was very helpful otherwise.
Sure, this is my personal telescope in the foreground. It's an Astro-Tech 115mm triplet apochromatic refractor on a Celestron CGEM II equatorial mount. The native focal length is 805mm at f/7, although I was using a focal reducer for the Orion photo (and maybe on all of them) that brings it down to 644mm at f/5.6.
Here's a few more shots I captured over two nights at the Connecticut Star Party. Any of them would have been completely beyond my ability last year.
I would expect such shots from the likes of NASA, but from an amateur they are somehow more fascinating.
I had no idea there could be so much color, but that just reflects my ignorance of astrophotography.
