After much trial and error, I found that the types of pictures I wanted to take were not very possible without some autoguiding.
I got the Orion Autoguider package, which is basically an 80mm scope mounted to the imaging scope and a autoguider camera. It took a while to setup, mainly because I didn't read the docs until after I had the scope setup and aligned. The skys here haven't been very dark, so last night was my first chance to try out the autoguider.
the above picture is one 5 minute 1600 iso image, one 2 minute 1600 iso, and one 3 minute 800 iso, stacked together.. That was not my intention.. After setting up, getting the autoguider to autoguide and taking test shots to find the best combination of exposure/iso, my mount's power flickered and at 3:30 am, I didn't feel like starting over, so I stacked the best of the test shots.
