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Forum: Pentax Camera and Field Accessories
12-08-2018, 09:54 PM
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Different needs are supported by different tools and approaches.- Pentax employs a technique that moves the sensor within the confines of the camera body to track the star's relative motion. The camera and lens as a single monolithic unit remains fixed in terms of pointing. When used with a long focal length lens with a relatively narrow field of view, the star is going to move out of the lens' field of view fairly rapidly.
- A tracking mount, physically holds the camera and lens as a monolithic unit and moves in opposition to the earth's rotation maintaining the pointing, and thus keeping the star within the lens' field of view. There are a wide variety of tracking mounts described here --- Telescope Mounts Tutorial
Pentax's implementation is better situated for wide field use (wide angle lenses, short focal lengths) as opposed to tracking mounts that physically move the camera/lens as a unit, and are thus pretty insensitive to the lens' focal length.
There is a lot of knowledge by a very active astrophotography group here on the forum down in --- Astrophotography - PentaxForums.com
I designed and developed a star tracker for a little telescope down in Texas - HET.
Personally, I really don't want to be bothered with a physical tracker. It's more equipment to haul around and to setup and align. Pentax's implementation for me, is much better suited - especially for astrolandscapes and wide field, which eliminates the problem of having the star field walkout of the lens' field of view.
:cool:
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