Setup for KP + 21mm Ltd Astrophotography in Grand Canyon This Labor Day Weekend?

skinja · 10-01-2018, 09:16 PM

Nice job! looking forward to a little Astro myself. Pretty easy learning curve? Did you set it up to shoot remote from your tablet?

I really like the first one.

CPLTarun · 10-05-2018, 11:46 AM

Originally posted by skinja

Nice job! looking forward to a little Astro myself. Pretty easy learning curve? Did you set it up to shoot remote from your tablet?

I really like the first one.

Thanks! I can't speak to the learning curve, since I'm still very much an an absolute amateur when it comes to experience. But, I can say that's pretty easy to get started, to get a decent picture of the Milky Way, provided decent weather and low light pollution.

My setup was fairly simple and straightforward: KP with 21mm on a standard sirui tripod, controlled with either the 3mm Pentax remote shutter, or using the on-camera shutter itself with a 2 second timer. I also set up the intervalometer in the camera menu, taking more than 50 shots at 13 seconds each at ISO 6400. So for each angle, the camera took about 15-20 minutes worth of photos. I also took several dark frames, and used both the light and dark frames in Sequator, stacking and eliminating the noise to get the final pictures that you see in my post.

Going forward, I plan on buying and using a small, portable star tracker for my KP and longer 50mm Pentax and 70-300mm Tamron lenses.

skinja · 10-07-2018, 07:40 AM - **1 Like**

Thanks for the info. I can’t wait to give it a shot with the KP. I did a work shop some years ago and we did a little Astro. I had some pretty good shots I thought, but nothing compared to what I’m seeing. Unfortunately both of my hard drives died within a couple days locking all 30k photos up in a time capsule that has not opened as of yet.

Here is one from that workshop.

CPLTarun · 10-16-2018, 05:02 PM

Originally posted by skinja

Thanks for the info. I can’t wait to give it a shot with the KP. I did a work shop some years ago and we did a little Astro. I had some pretty good shots I thought, but nothing compared to what I’m seeing. Unfortunately both of my hard drives died within a couple days locking all 30k photos up in a time capsule that has not opened as of yet.

Here is one from that workshop.

I love the colors and gradations in the sky, absolutely beautiful.

Ya, hard drives can be a real pain in the neck. My hard drive failed on me almost a couple years ago, and I still haven't gotten around to recovering all my lost files from it. I'm considering paying a yearly membership and have my files backed up to cloud servers, a la Backblaze

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10-01-2018, 09:16 PM	#16
skinja Veteran Member Join Date: Dec 2007 Location: Denver, Co Photos: Gallery \| Albums Posts: 968	Nice job! looking forward to a little Astro myself. Pretty easy learning curve? Did you set it up to shoot remote from your tablet? I really like the first one.

10-05-2018, 11:46 AM	#17
CPLTarun Junior Member Join Date: Feb 2018 Posts: 49 Original Poster	Originally posted by skinja Nice job! looking forward to a little Astro myself. Pretty easy learning curve? Did you set it up to shoot remote from your tablet? I really like the first one. Thanks! I can't speak to the learning curve, since I'm still very much an an absolute amateur when it comes to experience. But, I can say that's pretty easy to get started, to get a decent picture of the Milky Way, provided decent weather and low light pollution. My setup was fairly simple and straightforward: KP with 21mm on a standard sirui tripod, controlled with either the 3mm Pentax remote shutter, or using the on-camera shutter itself with a 2 second timer. I also set up the intervalometer in the camera menu, taking more than 50 shots at 13 seconds each at ISO 6400. So for each angle, the camera took about 15-20 minutes worth of photos. I also took several dark frames, and used both the light and dark frames in Sequator, stacking and eliminating the noise to get the final pictures that you see in my post. Going forward, I plan on buying and using a small, portable star tracker for my KP and longer 50mm Pentax and 70-300mm Tamron lenses.

10-16-2018, 05:02 PM	#19
CPLTarun Junior Member Join Date: Feb 2018 Posts: 49 Original Poster	Originally posted by skinja Thanks for the info. I can’t wait to give it a shot with the KP. I did a work shop some years ago and we did a little Astro. I had some pretty good shots I thought, but nothing compared to what I’m seeing. Unfortunately both of my hard drives died within a couple days locking all 30k photos up in a time capsule that has not opened as of yet. Here is one from that workshop. I love the colors and gradations in the sky, absolutely beautiful. Ya, hard drives can be a real pain in the neck. My hard drive failed on me almost a couple years ago, and I still haven't gotten around to recovering all my lost files from it. I'm considering paying a yearly membership and have my files backed up to cloud servers, a la Backblaze