It was very clear for this season, there were a lot of bright deep sky objects in the southern sky, and I was picking them at random. My best result was this shot of the Lagoon Nebula.
Relative to the APOD work and other stuff you see online, this is Brownie Camera stuff. It's certainly simple to do, although there is certain amount of setup required. I find the results rewarding, but let me be clear that I'm not putting this up against the APOD stuff. Still, I do harbor a grudging opionion that this is what it REALLY looks like. I should add that I did clean this up with some photo adjustments in Paint.net, darkening the sky and sharpening the nebulosity.
