Charming Potato

Hello. It was my first time imaging the sky. I tried to capture M101 and sort of got it (very very faint). I only have a DSLR (Nikon z50) with kit lens (50-250Mm F/4.5-6.3) and no mount, only a generic tripod. I took the data from my backyard in a Bortle 7-8 area inside the city. My lens was set to 100mm with F5 aperture and 1600ISO. I took 600 light frames @2 second exposure, 100 dark frames, about 40 flat frames and around 60 bias frames, and stacked them in DSS, then stretched in Gimp. I know it is not the best result compared to what I see here, but is there anything I could have done to make it more clearer with my current setup?

Alright. I will look into these mounts. Thank you so much!

Thank you so much for your input. So I will definitely need some sort of tracker in the long run? I've already had my eyes on Samyang 135mm F2 lens for a while now, but every beginner guide I have read has pointed out to first get a good mount before spending on other equipment. What would be a good tracking mount in your opinion? I'm not very shy in learning new tech, so difficulty level of it shouldn't be an issue as long as it can do the job. Tonight I'm planning to try and take lunar images and Andromeda if it is visible from my backyard, I hope everything will be okay!

Hello. I am very much interested in astrophotography, and I have been reading a lot about it for the past couple of months. I got interested in it when I went to a Bortle 3 area a couple of months back and took some pictures with my phone on a tripod using ExpertRaw from Samsung, in astrophotography mode. I have a Nikon Z50 with kit lens (50-250Mm F/4.5-6.3, and 16-50Mm), a tripod for camera and I live in a Bortle 7 area in the city. I have a generic tripod mount for DSLR cameras that I bought off of amazon a while back and that's it. I unfortunately do not have anywhere close-by with low light pollution, and I was wondering would it be possible to shoot DSO's like galaxies and nebulae with this setup from my backyard? Will getting a mount like Staradventurer etc make it better? If so, can someone please guide me in the right direction what exactly I should be looking into or be looking to invest in? My budget is around €500. I know this question is asked a lot, but I would really appreciate some help with this!