Are you using a Hydrogen-Alpha filter chrisssb ?
If you're very interested in astrophotography you should get 2 important filters ( Deep Sky Filter [ Light polution reduction ] + Hydrogen-Alpha filter [ reduces frequencies other than IR to allow the camera to capture more red from the nebulaes, it's either this, or removing the IR filter from your camera ] )
You may also want to invest into an astrotracker, this will allow you to take very long exposures without star trails.
But once again, the best way would be capturing several exposures ( such as 10* 2minutes exposures ) and stack them with registax or deepskystacker, getting a more contrasty image with less noise.
