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05-19-2017, 09:55 AM - 1 Like   #1066
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The conversion was done in like a week. The k5 sensor is better suited for astro imho. I use 2" filters in a filter wheel directly infront of the camera. The off axis guider is in front of the filterwheel.

05-19-2017, 10:44 AM   #1067
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Thanks Seti
11-15-2017, 02:42 PM   #1068
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QuoteOriginally posted by Skymist Quote
There has been no astrophotography thread for K-5 yet, so with your permission I'll start one. In forums without a specific forum for this kind of subject, I've seen a thread like this remain active for years. Let's see your K-5 sky photos, all kinds, including stars, planets, deep sky telescope objects, spacecraft, satellites, and atmospheric phenomena. Also advice, data, and ideas.

To start with, I want to post the data I took for the camera's built-in interval timer. It's a cool feature that the K-5 has the interval timer in the camera, so you can do without attaching an external one. In the menu, you can set the interval timer with a shutter interval, a total number of activations, and a time to begin the activations. The firmware acts like a finger pushing the shutter - that is, the interval you choose is the time between shutter activations, not the time from when the shutter last closed. That means, if the camera needs 1 second to process each shot, and you have the shutter open for 30s, you must set the interval to 31 seconds or more. That's because the camera must be ready for the next shot when the timer fires, or that shot will be skipped.

The issue is complicated by the Dark Frame Subtraction feature, DFS, which in the menu is called "Slow Shutter Speed NR". If DFS is on, after each shot the camera takes a reference frame with the shutter closed which is then processed with the image to remove hot pixels and other problems, at the cost of almost doubling the time per shot.

Using my K-5, I determined the minimum interval time for each of the long shutter times. Enter this value, or higher, into the interval time menu. Using too short a time will cause shutter activations to be skipped; using too long a time will unnecessarily waste time, and we don't want to do that if we are taking sky pictures. As you would expect, the values for DFS on are much higher than those with DFS off. You decide which you want to use.

Values in Bold are more efficient in time used, and have proportionally less dead time, than their neighbors. Use them if you can. For instance, 20s is a good choice for an exposure time - set the interval to 21s if you have DFS off, or 35s if you have DFS on.

Exp NoDFS DFSon
0.25 1. 1
0.30 1. 1
0.40 1. 1
0.50 1. 2
0.60 1. 2
0.80 2. 2
1.00 2. 3
1.30 2. 3
1.60 2. 4
2.00 3. 4
2.50 3. 5
3.00 4. 6
4.00 5. 9
5.00 6. 10
6.00 7. 12
8.00 9. 14
10.0 11 18
13.0 14 21
15.0 16 27
20.0 21 35
25.0 26 42
30.0 32 54


Some interval times are convenient divisors of an hour.
An interval of 6s gives 600 shots per hour.
An interval of 10s gives 360 shots per hour.
An interval of 12s gives 300 shots per hour.
An interval of 18s gives 200 shots per hour.
An interval of 36s gives 100 shots per hour.
Wow this is great to read up on and just what I need.
My interest is in slow shutter work especially waterfalls and rivers but I'm very interested in astrophotography.
On the other end of the realm I like to shoot fast surf shots from the beach.
I'll get some practise in this weekend pending the dismal weather here.
Thank you very much,
Annie.
11-17-2017, 07:03 AM   #1069
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Hello,

Recently I got a Pentax ASCOM driver from a Pentax owner who pointed an ASCOM driver that can control a camera using a serial cable. The author has no time to improve it anymore, however he agreed to make it open for the community.

GitHub - vmiceli/PentaxDSLR: ASCOM driver for Pentax

So if there are Pentax owners with programming skills. Please give a helping hand. Really appreciate this.

Regards,
Tom

03-27-2018, 05:08 AM   #1070
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K-5 Tethering: BIG news

Hi,
It is now a couple of years that I was looking for tethering software for my K-5. I even contacted Pentax directly but without result.
Just yesterday I looked again on the Linux fora for solution and I could not believe my eyes. Since last October 2017 the first version of ENTANGLE was released. Totally free and open source!!!
I immediately installed it and after a few minutes trying different camera settings I got it working.
FANTASTIC!!!
The tool allows also a command line interface. You can control a limited number of Camera parameters and the pictures end on your PC hard-disc without problems. So far I found it very stable.



I am curious to read your experiences with the tool and will report back about my findings.
Regards


Stefan
03-27-2018, 05:31 AM - 1 Like   #1071
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I’ll give it a try but for some time now GPHOTO2 has supported the k5. Its part of Kstars for astrophotography toolset. Now I’m trying to get them to fix the k3 operation.
03-28-2018, 02:02 PM   #1072
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Thanks for your reply. Are you saying that today K5 can be controlled by KStars? This is new to me as a year ago I did not succeed. After having discovered entangle that is based on gphoto I wondered already whether KStars would also work now. Do you know who moved to who? Did Pentax finaly made their equipment compatible with the standard or was it vice versa? As long as it works and it is stable we should not bother. I will try KStars again. Regards, stefan

03-28-2018, 02:18 PM   #1073
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Yes. K5 can be controlled by kstars. I have been doing so for quite a few months now.

There were two issues that were resolved with working with GPhoto2 and stellarmate/kstars developers.

1) recognize the model
2) mounting issue in Linux

So the caveat is that you must control via Linux OS, stellarmate for example

I know it won’t work with Mac because of mounting/device capture issues. It may work with windows but I don’t know.

Last edited by k5astro; 03-28-2018 at 02:33 PM.
03-30-2018, 03:00 AM - 1 Like   #1074
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QuoteOriginally posted by gbeaton Quote
Yes. K5 can be controlled by kstars. I have been doing so for quite a few months now.

There were two issues that were resolved with working with GPhoto2 and stellarmate/kstars developers.

1) recognize the model
2) mounting issue in Linux

So the caveat is that you must control via Linux OS, stellarmate for example

I know it won’t work with Mac because of mounting/device capture issues. It may work with windows but I don’t know.
That is great news. I must recognize that the last year I was not active at all in the field (moved from Belgium to Italy for work). I will try this out immediately and report back. Excellent and thanks a lot for sharing the information.
Regards,

Stefan
04-04-2018, 09:52 PM   #1075
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Hi Gbeaton,

I checked the Stellarmate site and understood that it is now a complete system based on a RPi3 with Linux OS (probably KUbuntu) and a series of tools (probably including VNC, SSH, and of course the Indi suite).

From there I deduce that today the Pentax K-5 has now a proper Indi driver allowing direct control from KStars and Ekos. Could you please confirm this and that no other middleware needs to be installed?

The K-5 needs to be put on Misc for the USB config, isn’t it?

Best regards and thanks in advance for the confirmation.

Stefan
04-05-2018, 04:10 AM   #1076
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Set the USB setting to MSC (Mass Storage Class). The way I understand it, the INDI driver talks to GPhotolib2 which talks to the camera. But yes, there is nothing else to buy or install. It will start up as a Wifi hot spot and you connect to it using the address stellarmate.local.

I'm not sure if I explained this, but the most common use of stellarmate is to install Kstars on your laptop - I have a Mac - and connect to stellarmate via Ekos, part of Kstars. Kstars is a comprehensive program like Sequence Generator Pro (but free!) so you should follow the setup wizard and not change any settings until you've used it and know what you doing. However, simplest thing to do is just connect to stellarmate via VNC and use it that way - a little slow in response but workable.
04-05-2018, 01:17 PM   #1077
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Thanks a lot for the clarification.
I followed the development of KStars and Ekos via the Indi.org portal and helped debugging for a year or two. In the meantime I got familiar with what Indi has to offer. I deployed it on a few RPi machines, powered all with a normal and cheap car battery and managed to be autonomous for at least a night. I added a Zwo astrocamera and used it for guiding and now and then for taking series of light frames to be stacked initially with the Win based Deep Sky Stacker and started looking for a full Linux solution. On my bucket list I needed still the tethering of my Pentax K-5 and the familiarization with the professional IRAF for image processing. With the progress in the field of the K-5 one action on my list can be deleted. In order to be totally autonomous in the field far away from internet and the possibility to use the NTP time synchronized service I have still a GPS module in my drawer to be used with and older RPi and configured as stratum 1 time service.
Step by step I am progressing but this step is a big one.

This evening connected my K-5 with my desktop Pc and I saw a completely different behavior than I am used to. It is not yet 100% operational but this is a question of configuring the system.

Stefan
04-06-2018, 04:23 AM   #1078
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QuoteOriginally posted by noste99 Quote
Thanks a lot for the clarification.
I followed the development of KStars and Ekos via the Indi.org portal and helped debugging for a year or two. In the meantime I got familiar with what Indi has to offer. I deployed it on a few RPi machines, powered all with a normal and cheap car battery and managed to be autonomous for at least a night. I added a Zwo astrocamera and used it for guiding and now and then for taking series of light frames to be stacked initially with the Win based Deep Sky Stacker and started looking for a full Linux solution. On my bucket list I needed still the tethering of my Pentax K-5 and the familiarization with the professional IRAF for image processing. With the progress in the field of the K-5 one action on my list can be deleted. In order to be totally autonomous in the field far away from internet and the possibility to use the NTP time synchronized service I have still a GPS module in my drawer to be used with and older RPi and configured as stratum 1 time service.
Step by step I am progressing but this step is a big one.

This evening connected my K-5 with my desktop Pc and I saw a completely different behavior than I am used to. It is not yet 100% operational but this is a question of configuring the system.

Stefan
Yeah GPS sync is not trivial. I looked into it enough to decide it wasn't worth my effort. Since I bring my laptop to control a stellarmate, I setup sites on Kstars on my laptop and I don't drive far enough to change the timezone so basically the time is taken from my offline laptop and the location is the one I set in Kstars.
04-12-2018, 07:20 AM   #1079
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K-5 at ISO 80 : Very Best APSC Sensor 4 Long Exposure

QuoteOriginally posted by Pete_XL Quote
Yes we'll see us ! But at the moment during the galaxy season I do the most images with my K3ii at ISO 400 and ISO 800. I often intended an own Serious Test between High / Low ISO and the K3ii / K5 but imaging time under the stars is so rare and precious that I use every single second for shooting instead .
Ok... so, I worked hard for you !

Here are Tests = Long Exposure Dark Noise :
The Sensor Noise DB. – Brendan Davey Photography
Even at +5ev, Pentax K-5 (+Nikon D7k) keep their dark... Dark !
A 1000 sec. Exposure through an UHCS filter +6ev :
https://www.cloudynights.com/gallery/sizes/32054-pk5lv-5-6/large/

Here are Measurements : very Very Low Dark Current :
https://astronomy-imaging-camera.com/products/asi-cooled-cameras/asi071mc-pro/
The reason why ZWO sells its Asi071MC from ~$1680 up to ~€2000

Both prove the Pentax K5 is the very best APSC for AstroPhotoGraphy :
Pentax me revoila : mon K5 arrive juste
Their secret reside in their Sony imx071 sensor...

Here is a Summary of Pros & Cons of : High-Gain-Short-Exposures -vs- Base-ISO-Long-Expo. :
www.chassimages.com/forum/index.php/topic,236962.msg6751782.html#msg6751782
100x8 sec. : Asi224MC at Gain 300 - opposed to - 4x720 sec. : K-5 at ISO 80
Never hesitate choosing Best Cameras for different purposes

See you soon... at ISO 80 !
.

Last edited by geo444; 04-12-2018 at 07:44 AM.
04-12-2018, 03:59 PM   #1080
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QuoteOriginally posted by geo444 Quote
Ok... so, I worked hard for you !

Here are Tests = Long Exposure Dark Noise :
The Sensor Noise DB. – Brendan Davey Photography
Even at +5ev, Pentax K-5 (+Nikon D7k) keep their dark... Dark !
A 1000 sec. Exposure through an UHCS filter +6ev :
PK5Lv 5 6 (Size: Large) - Astro - Photo Gallery - Cloudy Nights

Here are Measurements : very Very Low Dark Current :
ASI071MC Pro (color) | ZWO ASI
The reason why ZWO sells its Asi071MC from ~$1680 up to ~€2000

Both prove the Pentax K5 is the very best APSC for AstroPhotoGraphy :
Pentax me revoila : mon K5 arrive juste
Their secret reside in their Sony imx071 sensor...

Here is a Summary of Pros & Cons of : High-Gain-Short-Exposures -vs- Base-ISO-Long-Expo. :
www.chassimages.com/forum/index.php/topic,236962.msg6751782.html#msg6751782
100x8 sec. : Asi224MC at Gain 300 - opposed to - 4x720 sec. : K-5 at ISO 80
Never hesitate choosing Best Cameras for different purposes

See you soon... at ISO 80 !
.
Thanks @geo444.

By the way, you can get Pentax and other sensor data here: Sensorgen - digital camera sensor data
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