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Forum: Pentax K-5 & K-5 II
08-02-2013, 06:16 PM
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The clouds finally decided to part for once last night and I was able to get a shot of M8 and M20. Seeing was kind of terrible and my mount was giving me trouble so my exposures will limited to 150 seconds, but in Michigan you take what you can get. The image is a bit noisy but I think came out rather well all things considered.
Shot with my K-5, Orion ED80 w/0.85 FR/FF, CG-5 mount autoguided with an Orion Starshoot. Also had to use my Orion Skyglow filter to actually be able to image the nebulae.
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Forum: Pentax K-5 & K-5 II
02-23-2013, 03:39 PM
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You can probably do some solar system photography with that scope but thats about it. That long of focal length and with that mount you just won't be able to do any decent length of exposure without major star trails. If you want to do some wide angle stuff with just a lens that shouldn't be a problem with that mount. I recommend the Nikon 180mm 2.8 AI as a fast wide field lens. I don't own one myself but the images I've seen taken with it have been fantastic. Best AP lens for the money hands down.
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Forum: Pentax K-5 & K-5 II
01-24-2013, 06:57 PM
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Forum: Pentax K-5 & K-5 II
01-21-2013, 08:31 PM
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Very nice. What do you mean by "mod" for your K-5.
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Forum: Pentax K-5 & K-5 II
01-21-2013, 04:51 PM
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Yeah I do, I just didn't use it. This image was more of a test of my new autoguider and I left the filter at home. If I ever get some time before M42 goes away for the year I'll try it again with it.
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Forum: Pentax K-5 & K-5 II
01-20-2013, 04:58 PM
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Here is the latest of my astrophoto attempts with the K-5. Was really hoping to bring out more of the dust surrounding the nebula but the light pollution saturating the image after only 60 seconds. I had to push this one pretty hard. The image consists of 30x50" exposures at ISO 6400.
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Forum: Pentax K-5 & K-5 II
09-20-2012, 07:55 AM
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Excellent shots kaymayok. I take it you live somewhere with dark skies? If I tried shots like that around here the image would be completely white.
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Forum: Pentax K-5 & K-5 II
09-03-2012, 10:07 PM
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It all depends on the kind of photos you want to take. I've found that lenses can be very hit and miss when it comes to astro photos. Many long FL lenses that are very sharp and work well for terrestrial photography can be terrible for astrophotography and vice versa. The most important things to consider are sharpness at infinity and CA. The easiest way to tell is just to try it.
As for the GPS1, its a great and economical way to get into AP if you're on a budget. EQ mounts that are astrophotography worth start at around $400 for the whole setup. The GPS1 isn't perfect, don't except pinpoint stars every time, especially at 400mm. At 300mm I usually had a keep rate of around 40% with 1minute exposures.
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Forum: Pentax K-5 & K-5 II
09-03-2012, 03:51 PM
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Its entirely from the field curvature of the telescope. The image is from a stack of 112x90sec exposures taken on an equatorial mount. There's very little star trails in that image, you have to look really really close at the original RAWs to see it.
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Forum: Pentax K-5 & K-5 II
09-03-2012, 08:44 AM
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Yeah, I didn't really have the field flattener positioned correctly. Normally I'd crop the image a little more but in this case the object took up nearly the entire field.
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Forum: Pentax K-5 & K-5 II
09-02-2012, 11:05 PM
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Here's my most recent shot, M31. Taken a few weeks ago with my K-5.
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Forum: Pentax K-5 & K-5 II
08-09-2012, 07:53 PM
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I got some time earlier this week to try out my new telescope on some old targets, M101 and M13. I think they turned out alright considering the moon was out and shining bright that night.
M101 is about 60 minutes worth of 90sec subs at ISO 800. M13 is a combination of 8x90sec subs at ISO 200 and 8x90sec subs at ISO 800. Scope was an Orion ED80.
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Forum: Pentax K-5 & K-5 II
07-05-2012, 02:02 PM
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Very nice shot doc. What scope and mount are you using.
I tried shooting M101 this past weekend using my EQ-1 mount and Orion ST80 to see how it stacked up against my O-GPS1 for tracking. As it turns out the O-GPS1 has a much higher keep rate. I took about an hours worth of subs but could only use about 4 minutes or so of it. Plus the transparency of the sky during this heat wave has been terrible at best.
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