u/AnakixSpace

So as you suggested, I waited until Milky Way was high above horizon and walked half a kilometer away from street lights. And result was great, I could see Milky way stretching from Cassiopeia to Aquila constellations. The core however, was drowning in light pollution and invisible to naked eye. But with binoculars and telescope I managed to see all bright nebulae and star clusters in that region. I also took a picture of some of them with Dwarf 3 telescope. And of course I photographed the Milky Way itself with phone and managed to collect about 30 minutes of 10sec 12000iso exposures.

I recently come across this drawing of Ring nebula. What blew my mind is that owner was using a 80 mm Svbony ED refractor. 80mm? I have 90mm acro, and I still see only a gray smudge with no features. I asked how and she said that its the powers of ED optics that made the job and it can see better than some 130mm reflectors. Is this true and should I also buy high quality frac instead of big Newtonian?

Taken with my Dwarf 3 during trip to bortle 4. Managed to collect 22 minutes of 10s 100iso subs. Processed using Stellar studio

Yesterday I drove outside town (3) to try to see Milky way. I waited for astronomical darkness and tried to see Cygnus region (1). But I couldn't see anything in that region besides stars. I even took a picture (4), that (maybe?) contains some barely noticeable Milky way structure. Important to say, that to naked eye the sky looked pitch black. Unfortunately, clouds came before Milky way core was visible. Another thing to consider is blinding street lights (5) behind. According to lightpolution map (2), I was in bortle 4, which should be enough to see Milky way. Any suggestions welcome.

I recently watched video by Damon Scotting, where he showed idea of attaching a camera to finder to use it for navigation. But he used sharpcap software on pc, which is not really convenient to bring laptop everywhere. So, is there alternative app that I can use on mobile, and is building this system is good idea?