The light you are gathering in the larger scope is fantastic, especially at the high magnification. I usually don't venture above 50-100x for M42, must give it a try
It's sort of the back edge of the "field to narrow" sword. I never tried it either till I moved to the 16". At first I was disappointed that I couldn't fit much of it in the view -- but once you can't fit 100% of it you might as well look at 20% as 40% -- so I started to bump up the magnification.
Another great application of this is the big globulars -- M13 comes to mind -- which is simply wall-to-wall stars at 375x. (Which reminds me -- I must attempt a sketch of it when it comes around again.)
-- Jeff.
