Patience is a virtue when it comes to astro-photography

Well, as I said, go for eaysier targets first and you will learn fast. Go for Andromeda which is high in the sky early in the evening. Take 100 x 15 s with your 200 mm at ISO 3200 and see what comes out of stacking. Use the internet tutorials. And dont give up

Ok. I assume I'll need Astrotracer on for 15s. Mine doesn't seem to work at elevations above 45°...and I've seen other posts that confirm this. Don't suppose you know of any new firmware for the K3-II that might address?

100 exposures eh? How often will I need to reposition to keep it in view? Any tips for sighting...I'm doing everything by eye at the moment...I know Andromeda is just off the "neck" of Pegasus...any other guidance? I'll admit I can see bugger all in the viewfinder, so taking a short exposure, high ISO shot to check. It's a pain though as my tablet won't let me change ISO via the FLU card...

OK. Ignore all last. About time I did my own research. Pray for clear skies for me tonight...it's overcast right now...

Great choice of camera

Right, I'm calling tonight a "win", though not 100% successful.

I can see Andromeda!

Rather than go with the 200mm lens, I went with the 18-55mm at 55mm and f5.6, ISO 1600. I wanted to make sure I captured SOMETHING. Misremembered Pete's advice on exposure though and shot at 30s instead of 15. This was a mistake. Due to twitchy fingers I shot one frame at 13s by accident and number of stars in that frame about tenfold higher - even with astrotracer on, trailing was certainly evident in a test frame at 60s. Bit disappointed by that as times of 5min supposedly achievable but again elevation over 45°.

...question, would setting the camera in portrait mode improve Astrotracer at higher elevations? Need to run tests...

Also, realigned camera about halfway through, second half of frames even lower star count (by about 50%) not sure why.

Battery failed after 55 frames (my fault, not fully charged, need to buy a couple of spares).

DSS produces a file with a nice galaxy shaped smudge. Only issue I'm having is when I open the (277MB!) tiff file in gimp...it's blank. Looks okay in picture viewer. Need to take a screenshot today and upload, then figure out what I'm doing wrong.

Thanks for help, definite progress!

Photo as promised

Hoo hoo, that would be a galaxy there, that would!

My Astrotracer (I have the external O-GPS1 unit) seems to be rather notional about tracking. Sometimes it locks, sometimes it trails. Haven't really figured out why. Redoing the precise calibration does not help, I know that much.

As for battery issues. Heh. I finally wrote myself a checklist after a session where I got to the observing site with my friends, climbed up the old fire tower, set up tripods, did AT precise calibration, and only then noticed the battery was flat. Well, no trouble, I'll pull the spare out of the bag. The...flat...spare. OK, I'll steal the one from the K-7. The equally...flat one...in the K-7.

The only thing that got hurled off the tower was bad language, for which I am very proud. I got mocked, but I also got loaned a nice Sony point-and-shoot for the evening out of sheer pity.