So I tried my new lens out last night with some success (despite a bit of haze/cloud). The following was shot without tracking (standard camera mount) – using a 30mm fast (f/1.4) lens on a Canon EOS40D. It is a stacking of light, dark, and flat frames. Exposure was 15 seconds at ISO 1600 – in all there were 20 light frames (normal shots) used. Star trailing was just barely becoming evident – I will try using 10 second exposures next time. This is just another example of how astro-photography does not require a lot of expensive gear (or a lot of setup and alignment time).