I recently purchased a Canon model 7D  DSLR camera and I can tell you it is fantastic.  It has an APS-C sensor with 18 million effective pixels at 4.3 microns each. 

I have not used it very much yet and M42 is my very first astrophoto.  I will tell you it has beaucoup user controllable variables.  Of course that means, at least for me, a steep learning curve.  But we're getting there.  The M42 image has only a total of  5 1/2  minutes of JPEG data.  This lean amount of the acquired data was due to my learning curve as well as the extremely freezing temperature.  (The camera was O.K.

 but I wasn't).  I did put a hand warmer in a towel and wrapped it around the camera since I didn't know what effect the cold would have on it.  I should have wrapped it around my hands.  What?  No gloves Bob?  No, I won't be that long...........

Anyway, I hope I'm not alone in feeling the image came out well considering the data.