Need some pointers on processing the Milky Way

I went to the desert this past weekend and took a few pictures of the Milky Way as it was coming up over the horizon right before sunrise. This image is 14 photos at 24 seconds each with 2452 ISO (I put 1600 ISO, but somehow it ramped up...?) stacked in Deep Sky Stacker and touched up a little in Lightroom 4. I've played around with various settings in DSS and LR4 and can't seem to do any better than the image attached. I did shoot this with a point and shoot Canon SX40 HS with CHDK which explains the excessive noise. Also, Is there any way of getting rid of the noise around the top of the mountains? Can anyone touch up this photo better than what I did and possibly give me some pointers? I think I need an editing program that's capable of doing layers to address the mountain drift? <---Not sure if that's what it's called. Sorry for my ignorance.

-Scott

14 images @ 24 seconds w/Aperture F/2.7, 24mm, ISO 2452

I'd say that's very good for a point and shoot. You'd have to use the mountains from a single frame and do layers in Photoshop or another program.

Scott, you should be proud of that. There are plenty of images on here from high-end DSLRs and experienced photographers that don't come close to that. You've avoided the #1 sin of overcooking it.
You should try and find an editing tool capable of layers (Photoshop is the most common but Gimp is free) as it's a reasonably straight forward job to remove the light pollution, color cast and fix up the tree line.

Thanks Toxic Coolaid and StevenInNZ. I thought I was going to be heavily criticized for the image I produced, but I guess I was wrong. I wanted a true depiction (at least in my eyes) of the Milky Way. I know I still have a lot of issues in this image, but overall I'm pleased as this is my second attempt shooting the Milky Way and my first attempt was a little less than a month ago and that image was atrocious. I guess all of my long nights staying up reading paid off?! I can't wait to get the 5D Mark III. I could only imagine my pictures would be a lot better. BTW, thanks for the info about Gimp, I've never heard of the program, but I'll be sure to check it out as I love free programs.

Thats a great shot! Well done sir and good luck on your journey into post-processing!

Here's the final image with the mountains cropped in from one of the original pictures. Thanks SteveInNZ for the heads up about Gimp. This is exactly what I needed.

Be very proud of what you have done here, as has been said, lots of people can't do anywhere near this well with years of experience.