Stack your photos...it's better than cranking the ISO up too far and you can control the noise you will get with a higher ISO (in most cameras). With some cameras, you also have to be careful of amp glow on the chips and noise generated by hot sensors. I wouldn't suggest going any higher than 1600-2000 in most cases, especially in light polluted areas and even there I wouldn't push much past 400-800 ISO. The good thing about stacking pics is you take many shorter length exposures and stack them to bring out the data present in the pics. Also, taking dark frames will help with the noise issues. Also, in post processing, don't try and stretch your stacked pic too much at once. Do it incrementally. You can even introduce noise into pic by your processing. There are times to be aggressive with your processing and times when a bit of finesse will give you far better results. Overall, though, being aggressive with your processing isn't the way to go. Very often good results can come from minimal processing. And, whilst you can take good astropics on a normal tripod, get yourself a tracker. Any of them from iOptron, Skywatcher, Vixen, etc, will do. Also, consider setting up a lightweight guiding setup for your tracker/camera combo. Having the ability to guide will help tremendously with keeping stars nice and round, providing you have good polar alignment. It will also allow you to take exposures for much longer periods and that will help in gathering the light you need. Especially on the dimmer targets. If you want to, you can get a camera modded, meaning you can have the IR filter in the camera either completely removed to have a full spectrum camera or you can replace it with a Hydrogen alpha (Ha) filter so you can detect the light coming from emission nebulae (like Orion, the Eagle, the Cat's Paw, etc) more easily. I would also recommend that before you buy a camera, to research the cameras you like and see how they stack up with regards to astropics. Not all cameras are created equal and some have better performing sensors than others. For instance, if you want a really good (if not one of the best) camera for astropics, consider getting a Canon 6D or the 6D2. It has a really good spectral response, quantum efficiency and handles low light and high ISO really well. It probably has one of the least noisy and clean images in the business!! The Canon 1100D is also very good in this regard. Anyway, I could go on for hours about this, I'll leave it at that and people can look up the info if they're interested.

I think having a head lamp with a red light is a good idea. Red so your eyes don't have to adjust if you were using a white lamp.

Awesome photos at the end!

I plan to try the milkyway tonight for my first time ever, i live on the middle of nowhere surrounded by cornfields in northern indiana. Im going to use my Olympus E-M1X with my Sigma 16mm f1.4 and my Olympus M.Zuiko 17mm f1.8

Can you repeat the name of the App you recommend for sharp stars? Please and thank you!

A you shooting astro by Leica? ❤

Cranking ISO up is a bad suggestion every camera is different some are ISO Invariant some are not so if you have a cheaper dslr then cranking up the ISO will just produce a large amount of noise so something like a cannon rebel t100 1600iso is the best setting every. But for an even better image take 100 of them and stack them together with Deep Sky Stacker using dark and flat and bias frames to reduce noise.