My friend did it again. He is amazing.
If you would like to see more of Tom's work check out his blog spot.
Tom J Martinez
http://tomjmartinez.blogspot.com/
I've been working on my astrophotography and trying to get better at it. We have a number of astroimagers in my astronomy club (a much higher percentage than any other club I'm aware of). The club has two astrophotography special interest groups and these guys are amazing.
I've managed to get MUCH better at image acquisition and can now take fairly long guided images (usually) without a problem. But I have a very long way to go on learning to do image processing.
Here is a somewhat recent (about a month ago I think) image that I did of the dumbbell nebula.
This was captured using a Canon 60Da and a TeleVue 2x Powermate with a Celestron C14 SCT (14" scope). It's an f/11 telescope but with the 2x powermate it effectively becomes an f/22. It was 16 "light" frames, each of which was 4 minutes long and 8 "dark" frames.
What I did _not_ have (and really needed) was "flat" frames... you can see the somewhat muddy background which fades to black as you get toward the corners. There are also a spot likely caused by dust which I presume was on the sensor (I subsequently cleaned the sensor.)
That is still a nice image of something that is not easy to get. It is a long way from the olden days of freezing you film to crease ISO. I am fully aware of Celestron telescopes. 
If you would like to, get a hold of Tom, you can tell him I sent you, as he is a wealth of knowledge in astro-photography and a willing teacher. Like I said way better than I am. He will share any techniques he uses. He is a published photographer in the astronomy world, so your friends that are really into astro-photography should know of him.
