Originally posted by LeoTaylor I gather the K-x lacks an external 6.5 vdc power jack? How could they drop such a simple and needed feature? Does that accessory require removing the batteries to insert the adaptor? It would seem even a brief loss of power (tripping on a cord in the dark) would abort the session. With my K110D running on external power it will last about 10 minutes on internal batteries, plenty of time for me to discover the power plug fell out and get the external power back on line. I'd say it happens about twice a year!
I'm a die hard Pentax lover but must admit Canon makes better cameras for astro without even trying. The one astro camera they did make (20Da I think it was called) simply had a better red response for nebulas.
Yes, there is no power jack on the K-x but I find it is not as needed as it is on the K200D. With eneloops I recently got hours of combined exposure time and still had battery life in the green. It looks like the movie and live view drains it much faster than just plain exposure time. I don't have the accessory yet because I can't find it anywhere. In the manual it shows that it inserts in the place of the AA batteries. This being the case, you don't want to loose power as you pointed out, although I have all of my power cords terminate under the mount and then one supply cord to the car outlet so it is not in the way.
I agree about the Canon being better a while back but the gap has narrowed and now with the K-x I believe we have a real contender. I'm finishing my stacking of last weekends astro outing and will post the results in a bit so you can see just how good the K-x really is.
Originally posted by pingflood Not really, but it's something I would like to get into. It seems like you really need to get a tracking mount if you want to do any longer glass or longer than ~30 second exposures though, isn't that true? The "barn door" mounts look interesting and it seems that with some care in the design you can make a "manual tracking" version that might be ok for some longer exposures. Any advice on doing something fun on the cheap would be appreciated!
I do have some stellar (hah!) long glass but I bet I'd get streaks/elongation pretty damn quick at 300/400mm.
Yes, a tracking mount is necessary to see any deep sky objects. The only thing you can do without a motor drive is wide field Milky Way shots although some of those come out pretty good expecially if you can combine it with a good forground subject. Orion telescope has some cheap manual rotate mounts for doing this with short lenses for around $50. Going as high as 400mm really requires the extra step of guiding unless you have a really expensive mount and absolutely perfect polar alignment.
Originally posted by youareme7 I'm new to the idea of astrophotography, but I've always wanted to try. Now that I've taken the plunge and gotten a DSLR (kx) I'd like to get into it a little.
What methods or software (I'm probably going to try this photoacute, sounds cool) do you use to stack images and subtract dark frames? Can this be done easy enough with the standard fare of photo programs like GIMP or photoshop?
I use RegiStax but this is a very difficult program to use and requires a lot of time and practice. Some of the others that were mentioned above will be better for first timmers.