Update: My neighbor saw my first pic of the Orion Nebula on my camera screen and said it looked like a smudge
I laughed it off but then he pulled out his phone and showed me a shot he got of Andromeda from his driveway in Reno with just a tripod and 30 second exposures. Made me rethink how much I was blaming my gear instead of just practicing my stacking. Anyone got tips for cutting down noise on a basic DSLR without buying a tracker yet?