In the meantime, I'm posting my first venture into "layering" and I was pleased I was able to tame that really big hotspot to some degree in M42. I guess this is still single-frame astrophotography but with an extra layer added to help with the dynamic range at least in this image. Excuse any imprecision on my part since I'm still pretty new to the more advanced world of digital manipulation. Serious stacking, "flats", narrow-band filtering, remote imaging, and whatnot are still eight months to a year away (if I ever decide to take up that challenge) since I'm finding single-frame astrophotography challenging enough right now.
There's still some red/magenta background "noise" that I'm having to deal with when using my unmodified consumer Canon EOS 77D
Orion 6-inch
Skywatcher EQ6-R Pro,
Canon EOS 77D unmodified
100 seconds ISO 1600
Single-Frame, two-layer
10/4/2019 … Pickering 4 sky with average transparency. About average conditions under clear night skies here in central Illinois.