Well, for the exposure info, you have to save the pictures locally and then just look at the properties of the file. It's all in there under the summary info. (though you may have to click advanced since it's not in the simple view)

As for damaging the sensor, right in the book canon says that I can leave the shutter open as long as I like. The only restriction they mention is battery life that they estimate at 2.5 hours. So if I had a power adapter I'd imagine it might be interesting to do a 24 hour exposure. Though I'd really want to tighten up the arperature I think or else I'd just get a white result... maybe just dusk till dawn would be as long as I'd want to go.

I think that I've been able to figure out though that ISO 100 is definately the only way to go, and the arperature depends on how bright the stars are. The only way to know though is to do test shots to see just what setting works best with the stars you have available at the time. Then I found a pretty good noise elimination method online.

You simply take a shot with the lens cap on for the same durration as the previous shot. you'll get just noise. You then take both shots into PS and on the noise only shot you drop the saturation all the way down and adjust the right most levels slider to the middle or so. You'll get a very defined noise pattern that you then select by selecting the black areas and inversing. Then take that selection to your image layer and apply a dust and scratches filter with settings of 3 and 0. Tada, a big noise reduction.

I've only tested a couple of shots, but it seems to work pretty well.

I'd still like any tips anyone has from their experience and any shots they can share would be great.

Thanks!