[Tsuken]

Hi all. Some seriously impressive photos in here. Definitely increased my desire for the GPS/astrotracer unit. Also I really wish I could find a Mac equivalent of registax. For now I'm making do with single exposures governed by the rule of 600, using my K-30 and Sigma 30 mm f/1.4

This was my first crack at the Milky Way with my K-30:

Milky Way edit #7 by -Occasionally Focused-

And the second, which is my favourite so far (only a smallish pic; I had to retrieve it from 500px, and for some reason only a smaller file is there - bigger one will be on my computer):

Milky Way 8.10.13 by -Occasionally Focused-

These were with ISO of 3200, and a shorter exposure time than the maximum I could have (8" for the first, and 10" for the second). Next time I try (once these damn bushfires finish and the air clears ... that'll be a while) I'm going to increase the exposure time a little and try ISO 1600 instead. - And after that the plan will be for a wider-angle lens, both for the wider view, and for the longer exposure time it'll allow.

[Neel1]

Google something called registax, it's an excellent free stacking app. This is the moon using it, again K-7:



That's relatively easy, I'm just getting into this and I havn't tried what PentaxPoke did but surely it can't be long

You also need to say what lens you used for this one!

[Sagitta]

Some more 'out the bedroom window' shots with the astrotracer.

Strangely, the unit behaved incredibly well with a budget Quantaray 500mm tube stuck on the end of my K-30 (one of those cheap f/8 jobs - I call it and its 400mm brother my 'tubes of doom' because generally speaking IQ from them blows).

That said, the lenses ARE lightweight and do well enough in a pinch if I don't want to stare too hard at the results they kick out.

This is a 50%-ish crop.I gave up on trying to post process it because of the abovementioned horrid IQ, but it gives an idea of what is possible.

EDIT: Just now noticed it seemed to jumpa bit, could of been anything - someone slammed the door to the building at one point, could of caused the jump.

ISO 800, 30 seconds, Quantaray 500mm wide open @ f/8



I've come to the realization that the O-GPS1 tends to work magnitudes better when its shot from the apartment window than when its used 'in the field'. I'm not quite sure why, but its probably worth noting.

I used he unit non-stop for about 45 minutes, swapping lenses and *not* recalibrating between each lens swap (I simply turned the K-30 off, swapped lenses, turned it on again and tols it what the new focal length was). I used it on a 28mm, then 200, then 500, then 135 and had near perfect tracking for the duration shooting towards the southeast where Orion was.

[Stone G.]

I've come to the realization that the O-GPS1 tends to work magnitudes better when its shot from the apartment window than when its used 'in the field'. I'm not quite sure why, but its probably worth noting.

Are you shooting from the same spot whenever you are in the field? If so, I would check the electronic compass reading against a map. There is a chance that you have some local deviations to the magnetic field at 'your site' that Astrotracer's calibration algorithms don't "know" about.

Anyway, congratulations that Astrotracer has apparently become more co-oprative with you!

[Sagitta]

Guess whats visible in the morning hours now here up north?

Spica!




Wait, wait, that's not it...



Sears 28mm f/2.8 macro. I played with the 200mm except I was dumb and was focusing on Spica instead of the comet because I (seriously) underestimated its visibility.

[k5astro]

Guess whats visible in the morning hours now here up north?

Spica!




Wait, wait, that's not it...



Sears 28mm f/2.8 macro. I played with the 200mm except I was dumb and was focusing on Spica instead of the comet because I (seriously) underestimated its visibility.

Let us know if ISON starts to show a little better!

[VisualDarkness]

We had some Aurora Borealis here in Uppsala, Sweden a while ago and I got some photos.










And I took one random shot of the stars. It's misfocused and has weird settings but is that blotch in the lower left section actually Andromeda? First time I ever got it that well and funny enough with a failed shot.

[Ex Finn.]

Sure looks like it. Seems to be Mirach to ten o`clock and Schedar to 3 o'clock (the more pronounced orange stars).

[formercanuck]

We had some Aurora Borealis here in Uppsala, Sweden a while ago and I got some photos.

Funny - I almost thought you were up in Northern Ontario in 'Upsala' Canada - named after Uppsala, Sweden

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Upsala,_Ontario

[VisualDarkness]

There are a couple of Swedish named places in North America. Some are form the big emigration to America and some ore from the less known Swedish colonization, but the Swedish colony was a huge disaster so better forget about it.

[formercanuck]

Well, technically I'm 1/4 Swede, 1/4 Irish, 1/4 British, 1/4 French/Italian, which makes me ... all Canadian - now with American citizenship as well

[oneeyedhawk]

Caught comet Ison as it passed the bright star Spica
Taken with my K5 smc 200mm F4 lens 10-20 second exposures at 400 iso stacked with deep sky stacker
Hank

[tonypysm]

C/2012 S1(ISON) Comet Pentax K5 ,Sigma 105mm/2.8 with Skytracker.

[tonypysm]

In this picture,I'm not sure the line is a Meteor or a Satellite.You also can find M51 Whirlpool Galaxy in the bottom left corner.
105mm 90sec exposure ISO1250 F2.8
PENTAX K-5 ,SIGMA 105mm/2.8 EX Macro ,SkyTracker

[bigrex]

Pentax K-5 does just dandy on Milky Way shots. Here's three samples, of course Photoshop also is a very valuable tool with such imagery.

Milky Way between Eureka, UT and Jericho Junction 6-5-2013 | Flickr - Photo Sharing!

Milky Way | Flickr - Photo Sharing!

All sizes | Milky Way _IGP9041iv | Flickr - Photo Sharing!