Scubayorp I don't even know if I should use Planetary Imaging, Deep Sky Imaging, Live Stacking or Deep Sky Stacking?
Planetary Imaging -- very bright objects that require short (10-100 milliseconds) exposures, and high gain (high gain to reduce read noise relative to target noise). Planets, Moon, Sun using solar filters or Etalons. You then stack these images using planetary stacking programs such as AutoStakkert to achieve very high resolution images from the multiple short exposures, each of which freezes "seeing" (what astronomers call "lucky imaging.") For your outreach, you can use this mode for real time Moon and Sun without stacking to get passable images since you don't need as much resolution to impress the unwashed. You can make out some blurry bands of Jupiter and a blobby ring of Saturn (forget about Cassini division) without stacking.
Deep Sky Imaging -- dim objects (or even not so dim, like M31). Loooong exposures, plus low gain to maximize dynamic range (like for M42). For most suburban skies (Bortle 5 to 7), exposures are typically 1 minute to 3 minutes before the shot noise from the sky far exceeds the camera dark current and read noise. Often you have to mix very short exposures with long exposures to get enough dynamic range (for example seeing M42 nebulosity without the trapezium region saturating the image). If you need even longer exposures (and you will), you simply save each of these minutes-long exposures and then stack these shorter exposures to form hours-long exposures by using dedicated software. For your purpose (instant gratification), it is however a mode that only works for brighter objects. But you can even get visible images of things like the North America Nebula and a hint of the Cygnus Loop without stacking.
Live stacking -- as it says "live." I.e., instant gratification. The above process where the stacking is done in real time, and you see progressively better images as more exposures are collected. Very inferior stacking compared to real stacking programs, and more prone to tracking and field rotations errors over the course of an hour. Star colors are also inferior to what something like Astro Pixel Processor star color tools can give you, for example. That said, it probably suits what you want to do the best, but terrible if you are serious about your images. The unwashed that you are outreaching won't know the difference between a good image and a poor image -- they just go "ooooh, Orion Nebula -- look, shiny!"
Deep Sky Stacking -- a program that stacks the images (offline) that you got from Deep Sky Imaging earlier. If you are even halfway serious about astrophotography, do yourself a favor and buy a real program like Astro Pixel Processor or PixInSight instead. The Deep Sky Stacker in ASI Studio is rudimentary, at best -- you get what you pay for.
All that said, the ASI120 class camera will give you extremely disappointing images. Too low dynamic range, too noisy, shallow wells, sensor size covering a very small FOV, etc.
Chen
