Trying my hand at Night Sky Photography

I went out Tuesday night (9/11/18) with the hopes of capturing the northern lights, but since the northern lights were a no-show, I tried my hand at photographing the stars - below is a picture of that.

Clearly, neither picture even resembles something good. Both are un-edited, and both are no where near what I had hoped even if I did edit them. So, disappointed in myself and frustrated with my lack of ability and luck, I did what anybody would do. I googled it.

Montana Night Sky Photography with Canon Rebel EOS T3

This little blog post was helpful because 1) the author used the same camera I have, and 2) she was photographing a Montana nighttime sky. From what I gathered, I was just slightly off on all my settings, particularly my ISO, which I had set lower than she recommends. I also didn't have a tripod, and spent some time fighting clouds. Another thing I forgot to do was set a 2 second timer - which explains why most of my photos came out weirdly blurred.