O-GPS1 Astrotracer function is phenomenal!

Fquesnel · 2013-12-02T03:07:40+0000

Greetings I recently got a K-30 (after my K-x died from dew condensing during night time shooting (oops!) and saw in the manual an astrotracer function(? !? ). By coincidence I was thinking of buying one of these small equatorial mounts made for dslr cameras (namely iOptron Skytracker). I bought the o-gps1 unit required for the astrotracer and here is the result of my second attempt. This was shot using an old pentax-A 135 mm 1:2.8 set at f/4.0. It is a stack of three 40 s shots using the astrotracer function. I am very pleased with this first result. I don't think I'll be buying an iotron any time soon. No star trails are visible on the image. Sure 40s is the maximum exposure I could get with the astrotracer instead of the 120 sec the unit suggested I could . But it's a lot better than the 2 or 3 sec I can get without tracking. And stacking images with deepsky stacker is really easy and make three 40 s shots look like one 2 min shot. As a bonus you don't have to take time setting up the equatorial mount. Just turn on the astrotracer wait for satellite lock, do the calibration and you're all set. Many thanks to the engineers at pentax who thought of this incredible device!

Pentax Digital SLRsPentax Digital SLRs

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DrOrloff DrOrloff

2628 posts
16 years
Brighton,
England

Posted 13/12/2013 - 18:28 Link

You can make a barn door tracker for next to nothing that will do a better job for astrotracing. I bought one as I had a voucher to spend bit it is also a very convenient way to take advantage of the skies here before I leave for the Dreaded Orange Glow. Having thought about it the GPS might be useful too for projects I have in mind.

You can see some of my photos here if you are so inclined

nass nass

481 posts
17 years
Surrey

Posted 13/12/2013 - 20:01 Link

I'm hoping for a few clear skies over Christmas, it's been foggy and damp here, no great visibility =(

... just another middle-aged guy with a hobby. I have an extreme macro learning site at extreme-macro.co.uk - Pentax-centric, your feedback and comments would be appreciated!