Hi Gary,
Sorry about your frustration with astrophotography. I second what Marc recommended - maybe for a start just get on Ha filter - 5nm or 6nm if you can and go from there. Ha signal is usually (always?) the strongest for emission nebulae so such filter will certainly help to get better SNR more quickly and should make astro imaging rewarding again.
Speaking of light pollution, I doubt many astro-imagers had it worse than me (please check the attachment). However, relatively sucesfull narrowband imaging is possible from a light polluted area, such as from within a few km from a CBD:
http://www.abc.net.au/news/2018-05-2...m-city/9783842
Having said that, since we have moved out of the city, I'm loving darker (but still humid and often cloudy) skies in a small town in NQ
