newbie help

I've taken a few pics of northern lights before but when it comes time to take more I can never remember where about the best settings are and seem to spend hours messing around trying to get it figured out. I also try to take pics of stars without any success. I haven't ventured to much into the manual side of my camera so any help would be greatly appreciated. Also where do you go to see if the milky way is visible near you? Camera is Canon T1i

If your sky is dark enough, all you need to do is to expose your subject with
- camera on a solid tripod,
-preferably cable release/ 2-10 sec delay,
-Good prefocus lens on manual setting/ using Liveview with 10x mag on any bright star,
-ISO 1600,
-30 sec exposure and
-a one stop closed of what ever lens you have,
is always a good place to start your experience with about 2EV bracketing, two additional images. View under a larger size monitor/tablet/wifi connected device and decide on best parameter for the reminaing of night, making sure not to move the focus ring.

Milky way runs from Northeat to Southwest. If you can't see it, you usually can't picture it (Given enough time for your dark adaptation - Usually staying 20-30 minues in total darkness.

Longer than 30 sec exposure, with a wide landscape lens, usually needs tracking.

No guide is better than your own trial and errors, as long as you pay attention to what has gone wrong and ways it gets corrected.