....... I had too much light pollution from Margaret River (WA) Town nearby.
That's a very manageable level of light pollution and easily processed out, based on the amount of detail visible in the Milky Way. I visited Perth/Fremantle >30 years ago, I'll never forget the night skies.
A couple of quick processing tutorials I put together for my astronomy club friends, specifically for dealing with moderate amounts of light pollution. First one is for Photoshop, second for GIMP.
pbase(dot)com(slash)emagowan(slash)processing
pbase(dot)com(slash)emagowan(slash)processing_with_gimp