SirMontgomery Loc: Seattle

I understand the basics of astrophotography,how to get a good exposure ect. I recently upgraded to one of the best cameras on the market for this, the pentax k1, and I want to push it to it's limits. These are just 30 second exposures at ISO 1600 on a 28mm SMC f2.8 film lens at f/3.5 to help with the extreme vignetting. I'll be buying a 24mm f/1.4 later this week as I do a lot of landscape photography. I also ordered a remote shutter so I caan start to use the astrotracer function.

I need advice on the post processing methods and pointers on stacking/dark images/ect, it's all new to me. I've never stacked images, I was always a one shot and done photographer (probably stems from film).

In the google drive folder I added the raw DNG files, if you can show me the way these come out properly edited and how it was done I would be incredibly thankful, I played with both of these for about 90 minutes a piece with shoddy results even after reading some online guides.

https://drive.google.com/open?id=0B5asYiM2YoEQRVZneGdYQU1ZTG8

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BassmanBruce Loc: Middle of the Mitten

I don't think your results are at all shoddy and I would be proud to have taken and processed these.
I'm tagging along in hopes of learning some answers to your questions.

Edit: You might want to have a look-see and add this post here: http://www.uglyhedgehog.com/s-109-1.html

SirMontgomery Loc: Seattle

I reposted the thread there with some additional info on the file

Tet68survivor Loc: Pomfret Center CT

I like them just the way they are! But I'm not you and your wants are important. When you figure it out, show us both this photo and your "fixed" photo!

mborn Loc: Massachusetts

I bought Alan Woodworth's Making the Milky Way Pop videos Excellent Adam Woodworth Photography, LLC
www.adamwoodworth.com

photoMark Loc: South Texas

I just did a quick edit using Luminar on one of your images! It is very easy to learn and use, and Macphun has great customer support. Right now it is for Mac only, but they have a beta version out for PC now. I'm still a single shooter myself, but I'll start out with a base exposure around f/4 @ 20 seconds and ISO 4000 with my 17mm, and vary the settings a little from there, based on how the image looks on the screen. Learn the 500 rule so you can set the maximum shutter speed for the particular lens that you'll be using to prevent star trails. Once you get use to what you can do with editing, you will be able to visualize what the final product will look like just based off of what you see on the camera screen. I think you did a very good job on these shots! Good luck!

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brucebc Loc: Tooele, Utah

Hang in there, good shots.

Bobspez Loc: Southern NJ, USA

In Astrophoography stacking is generally done using video and a program like Registax. 15 seconds of video will produce 450 frames for stacking. But I don't believe the shutter speed will be able to capture the Milky Way that way as long exposures are required.
Using the 28mm lens, the rule for avoiding star trails is 600/28=21 seconds exposure max. Avoiding star trails will produce stars as single points of light instead of short lines. Take the shot hands off on a sturdy tripod out of the wind, with the 10 second delayed shutter release, to avoid any camera shake. With the 24mm lens your maximum exposure time would be 600/24=25 seconds. You also want to use as wide an aperture and lowest iso possible (preferably iso 100) to avoid noise.