It has been sometime, and your responses are greatly appreciated. It took quite a bit of research and planning to use this lens, i.e., assembling proper supports and so on. What I have learned is this- a lens like this requires a serious commitment and it for the most part best suited to stationary subjects. If you shoot animals at a zoo, it will work with animals that do not move around a lot, and other animals while they are resting. As for moving subjects, the lack of mobility simply will not allow enough response time for objects in motion. Once you learn the limits of this lens it is possible to get outstanding results within those limits, but they are narrow when compared with the freedom of movement afforded by mirror lenses. That being said, the majority of 1000mm lenses out there offer optical quality that is practically on par with that of a video surveillance camera at f11 or f13.5. In other words, to be blunt, most of them are junk with the depth of field of a sheet of paper, and a thin sheet at that. This lens does have the fine optics that Pentax is known for, and can produce awesome results, but plan on investing some serious time if you want to get those results.
I don't know if I will keep this piece since I have to travel by train, but that is not Pentax's fault. It is still superior in my opinion to a lot of modern equivalents selling for ten times the price. I will post a reduced version of a great shot from my recent trip, and although not made with this lens, I hope you enjoy it.