AlphaGazer

If you can not use a remote shutter trigger you wont get good photos. Using your finger will mean shaky blurred long exposure pictures.

Sticky Velcro is very useful to stop stuff hanging.

Yeah, blurring the photos is one of my issues (the other being having to hold my finger there for an extended amount of time.. lol) I use the PlayMemories camera controller app through my phone. Wireless/wifi shutter button, but I'm not sure there is an option to lock the button down or use BULB mode in that app so i might have to get the wired shutter button for my longer exposures anyways. 

Oh and there isn't a way to set the camera up for like a 5 minute exposure or something? Id rather not have to hold my finger on the shutter for 5 minutes, and it doesn't seem like theres a feature to "lock" the shutter down on the Sony PlayMemories App. i was trying to avoid having one of the shutter control buttons wired to my camera/dangling from the tripod.

My camera does this even for the less than 30 second exposures..? So the length of time it takes to "process" is the issue at hand, not the automatic noise reduction itself? I thought the noise reduction was messing up peoples astrophotography photos/star trails in the over 30 second exposures? If not, will I be able to get by with this camera doing longer than 30 second astrophotography exposures? Waiting for the photos to "process" is kind of annoying, but if thats all the problem is at hand then I'm not sure I need to worry about rushing out and and switching it for an a6000. 

So I stumbled across this thread while trying to figure out how to shoot exposures longer than 30 seconds without holding down the shutter in the bulb setting (I never found that answer.. I assume it is possible?).. I bought an A5100 a couple weeks ago to upgrade from the typical pocket point and shoot cameras I used when I was younger. I started out taking a few 30 second exposures of the night sky at the beach with the camera and now want to try taking exposures longer than 30 seconds, but it doesn't sound like ill be able to do any night time photography longer than 30 seconds..? Its still within the 30 day return period, should I get my money back and upgrade to an A6000?