Professional v Amateur - what can be achieved

The upper image, showing Region R44 in the Carina Nebula , was taken by the European Southern Observatory, using their 8.5m diameter Very Large Telescope which is located high in the Atacama Desert in Chile.  Credit: ESO/A.McLeod

The lower image was taken by myself, using a commercially available FLI ProLine 16803 camera, mounted on my 0.43m diameter PlaneWave CDK 17 telescope in my roll-off roof observatory in Cohuna, Australia.