This is amazing! What area of the world do you live? What a gift to be somewhere so dark you can actually see stars - and this, oh my goodness. Thank you for sharing!

I less than a mile from the austin texas city limits bortle 7+ skies . If your unaware the bortle scale is a scale for how dark the ski is at your location ranging tom 1 to 9
1 is the darkest skies in the middle of nowhere (think bid bend national park and the equivalent) 5 is typical surburban skies
9 is the middle of a big city like houston chicago or new york

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bortle_scale

I less than a mile from the austin texas city limits bortle 7+ skies . If your unaware the bortle scale is a scale for how dark the ski is at your location ranging tom 1 to 9
1 is the darkest skies in the middle of nowhere (think bid bend national park and the equivalent) 5 is typical surburban skies
9 is the middle of a big city like houston chicago or new york

If you don't mind my asking, what equipment do you mean?

Ss in: reflector telescope as opposed to refractor? How many inches?

What kind of drive for the mount?

Unfortunately for my aspirations as an amateur astronomer, I live in an area that is brightly lit all night, and where the weather is cloudy more often than not.

Which is another reason I like this photo so much!

Best wishes.

i live in a brighly lit area too,less than a mile form the austin texas city limits. you'd be surprised what you can shoot even with light pollution. nebulas are even better to shoot than galaxies in light pollution because they make filters than can block most LP while not affecting the nebula

equipment list
astrotech 72 edii telescope (72mm refractor)
ZWO am5 mount
sony a6300 camera astro modded (basically they remove the IR filter and replace it with clear glass)
asair plus (a small device to control the scope camera and mount)

this is 4 hours of 5 minute exposures
stacked and processed using pixinsight software

If you really want to give it a try and dont want to spend a huge amount of money they have recently come out with something called a seestar s50. its a mount camera and telescope in one unit and is $500. rather than viewing thru an eyepiece it displays the image on an Ipad (or other tablet) I bought one because im trying to set up a public astronomy program where i live especially for youth groups and for when im to lazy to bring out the bigger setup

I must say I've always liked the clarity of refractors over reflectors, but not eveyone agrees. But refractor images always seem sharper to me, though I guess people see other advantages to reflectors.

Thanks again!

an 8" refractor would cost a fortune as opposed to a reflector
i prefer refractors since they dont require collimation. i wouldnt mind a little more focal length on mine though. its 350mm with the field flattener on it. i would like something in the 500mm or so area

someday....