(really bad) Star Photography

[PersistentNomad]

I'm not an astrophotographer, but I'm trying to be better at it. I took these tonight, but I'm not very pleased with them. I think my main problem is I don't live in an area where good spots to shoot from are readily available. This was in a small lawn at the bottom of the hill in my neighborhood, with street lamps about 50 and 100 yards away. I also don't have many places that leave for a good lead up to include the landscape in the images. Comments on photos and suggestions on good places to go shoot that "could be found anywhere" are welcome.
Both shot on my Nikon D5000, 60mm f2.8 ISO 100 Left image was 4.3 minute shutter, right image was 15 seconds.

 

[CdTSnap]

You need to crank up your ISO way more, try 15 seconds, iso 1600 f2.8

 

[SHUTTERHIVE]

Also set your focus to infinity then you should get sharper points of light

 

[tenthumbs]

Star trail and Milky Way shots are way more dramatic when there's something in the foreground. I would agree that your focus needs to be set at infinity.

There is A LOT of great information about these types of shots via Google. Not that you can't get excellent information on this forum, but bookmarking a particular online tutorial or lesson is easier to refer back to.