Just starting out.

[Fast Guy]

Here's some pictures I took on Friday night. It's pretty much my first attempt, so I know they are far from perfect.
I went a couple of miles out of town, but it's surprising how much light pollution there is from the small villages around and about.

1. Is the bright object Jupiter? (lower right of centre)
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v71/FastGuy/Misc/stars2.jpg
2. Slighty cropped to remove road signs
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v71/FastGuy/Misc/stars4.jpg
3. What's the faintly cloudy patch vertically just right of centre?
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v71/FastGuy/Misc/stars3.jpg
4. I just liked the car light trail.
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v71/FastGuy/Misc/stars.jpg

No processing bar resizing for the forum and cropping of the one picture.
Camera is 400d with 17-55 2.8is on a manfrotto 190cxpro tripod with 486rc2 ball head
They were at f2.8, 17mm iso 1600 (bar 800 for no1) 30secs, manual mode, mirror lock up and timer on.
I'm still seeing some movement, camera shake maybe, although I thought I'd done everything to avoid this with the tripod and settings. There was a very slight wind, but I didn't think it would have been enough to move the camera.
Also when I look at the pictures full size, there is noticable star movement. Can I only avoid this through tracking? as if I use a shorter time I won't be getting as much light for a decent picture. I assume stacking photos also requires tracking?

Is there anything of note/interest in the pictures or are they just random star shots?

[MintMark]

Fast Guy, those are great shots and similar to what I can produce at the moment. You can do shorter exposures and stack them without doing tracking. The stacking software (like deep sky stacker) can shift and rotate the images first so that all the stars line up (that's called registration). The more pictures you stack the more you can reduce the noise. Also, high ISO noise reduction does dark frame subtraction in the camera... maybe you had that on already.

After stacking you can do more processing to try and eliminate the glow from light pollution, but that is an art in itself!

Yes, I think picture 1 shows Jupiter with Aquarius above it. If you have binoculars you might be able to see some of the moons next to Jupiter.
Pictures 2 and 4 show the Pleiades cluster with Perseus above and Auriga to the left.

Shot 3 is lovely... you have a lot going on in there. The vertical cloudy patch is the milky way with cassiopeia towards the bottom. Near the right hand edge just below the middle you have the andromeda galaxy (kind of a smudge) and at the bottom of the screen in the milky way you have the double cluster in perseus.

OK, I'm going to get my widest lens out on the next clear night :)

[cspratt]

As you are using a tripod and an IS lens I would ensure the IS switch to off.

Nice shots by the way. Sort of what I was attempting the other night.

How did you focus? Where were they taken (Canada, USA, UK or?)

[timescapes.org]

Shoot RAW and try dropping the color temp a bit. Our eyes would tend to perceive skies like these as being more blueish. You might try boosting the blue-channel luminance, and then desaturating the blues some. Sometimes this makes the stars "pop" a little better.

Unless you like the warmer tones.

[Fast Guy]

Thanks for that MintMark. I did have the in camera noise reduction on at one point, but it seemed to take so long to do anything I turned it off again. I'm still none the wiser to the things you described, but glad there something in the shots.

Cspratt - having just checked my lens, yes IS was on whilst on the tripod. I guess I forgot about that one, although I haven't noticed anything untowards from it during daylight photography.
Focus was set manually by lining up the "¬" line before infinity with the marker line on the lens.
They were shot in North Yorkshire in the UK.

timescapes.org- I shot in raw+jpeg for all my shots. I just haven't tried editing in raw yet, so have a habit of sticking to jpegs.

[cspratt]

I thought the sign and road markings looked like UK standard ;-)

[timescapes.org]

jpegs are kind of fail for astro shooting. raw is so, SO much better, because you can really control temp and make the stars and even interstellar gasses pop with some tinkering.

[chrisgrime]

Great pictures. I need some experience with taking pictures of stars, but we seldom get the weather in my area!
I do like the light trail in No 4
:)

[Fast Guy]

That was about the 1st clear night in ages.

I downloaded DSS earlier and tried stacking 3 raws of the same area I took and when it did it's stuff, the final shot of all 3 at 1min 29 looked identical to the 1st one of 30secs. How long would I need to shoot in order to see the extra light build up into something more noticable?

I only seem to have Photoshop elements 3 or the canon software and I can't seem to work out how to process the raw images to well.