Milky way critique and tips

Last night I tried some milky way shots, here's what I did

Iso 1600
17mm
f/2.8
MLU
2 sec timer fired with wireless remotes
All in camera NR turned off
15x30 sec exp
5x30 sec dark frames (cap on)
5x1/4000th offset? frames (cap on)


I used live view 10x to focus on the brightest star I could find then framed up and fired away. Focus looks to be a problem as does a bit of light pollution. Any tips anyone can pass on regarding any of this and tips on PP to tease out the goodness that is obviously there. I used levels and curves to get out as much as I could. I noticed that there is a lot of blurring in the corners in them as well. I followed the tutorial here using DSS

Anyways, here's the pics

HTTP response: NOT FOUND | MIME changed to 'image/gif' | Redirected to error image by FLICKR

HTTP response: NOT FOUND | MIME changed to 'image/gif' | Redirected to error image by FLICKR

Nice shots, looks like you have nice dark sky at hand.

I see you used Darks and bias but what about Flats ?

Flat frames helps to remove vignetting from the frame. Make sure you disable peripheral illumination correction in camera,

Cheers
Sameer

The top image would be better with the milky way not so close to the edge, or at least with a better crop imo.