From what I've read all lenses have a 'sweet-spot' 1-2 f/stops above wide open, that's why I don't use the f1.8 aperature wide open.
I believe the 'sweet spot' for the 50mm f1.8 is ~2.5/2.8

Give the larger aperture a try and see how it works.
The more light you get in the more starts/galaxy you will see. Simply being in the "sweet spot" wont make your pictures better.

Also, what sort of post editing did you do? The pic you posted looks to have a lot of light pollution along the bottom and terrible contrast, but i know sometimes you have to tweak the exposure/contrast/brightness a LOT to get some of the good stuff to really show.

I didn't do ANY post editting (except from the starspikes I added) lol. That's why.
The light pollution is bad for a simple reason: There was a lone farm about 2 miles from where I was taking photos and the barn had spotlights the size of Pennsylvania.
P.S. It was my FIRST try, give me a break!

This post was edited by blakes on Jul 13 2013 02:01pm

Im not trying to give you a hard time, just trying to figure out how you can improve. You've gotten better results than I have, but I'm right outside Atlanta so the light pollution kills it for me.
You can do a bit in post to help the image but overcoming that light pollution is the big issue.

On a related note, Im moving up to the North Georgia mountains in a week so hopefully I can get some sick astrophotography shots up there!

this is generally true, but you gotta test it for yourself, the difference isn't always noticeable
and for shots like that wide open might give u better results than f/2.8 etc