Thank you so much Gwyn! In fact there was a very strong occurrence of Northern Lights between Monday 24 and Tuesday 25. October, and 100% perfect conditions here in Trondheim. I had not checked the Aurora forecast and was heavily asleep Well - I will have to check the Aurora forecasts regularly in the future!

Bjørn

Wonderful images!

Bjørn

One very important thing with the Pentax system for me is that they have the shake reduction in the body, and that the K-mount is backwards compatible with roughly 40 years of great lenses. When the Canikon users buy very expensive lenses with IS/VR implemented, what happens when they upgrade the camera body and the IS/VR technology has become outdated? The FA 31mm limited, for instance, will never become outdated in a similar way.

The product lineup with the Optio, K-r, K-5, and the 645D makes great sense. Pentax had already developed and refined the analogue 645 and 67 systems for professional users, and by releasing the 645D continue their involvement in the medium format league.

Although I would love love to be able to put my K28mm f3.5 on a digital Pentax full frame body, and use the lens like it was "intended", I doubt very much I will ever happen. I would not make sense for Pentax to start competing with Canikon in the full frame arena. Look what happened to Sony with the A900 and A850. They are probably good cameras (maybe not so good low-light performance), but did not have much success against the competition. I hope Pentax choose to improve their general QC and continue to develop great cameras in the APS-C format.

A last thing that initially attracted me to Pentax, is that it is outside the mainstream. "Everyone" buys Nikon or Canon, it feels good to not "follow the pack", but to go in another direction (I have also used the same line of argumentation when buying a car: I drive a Saab. And yes, the future of Saab seems slightly gloomier that that of my favorite camera brand)

Mike and Pentaxophile: Thank you for your responses to my inquiry, I do believe I understand more of the idea behind the Astrotracer now. For my own part this is at the moment only of general interest, I have neither the equipment nor the technical competanse to attempt expanding into this area. But Astro-photography is an outmost intriguing area within photography, I believe

Mike: I have looked-up your "Constellation of Cassiopeia" photo, and also your flicker gallery - very impressive stuff!

Bjørn

Very clever indeed! Let us hope this attracts more photographers to Pentax

What kind of a rig does one use with astrotracer? Is it only useful for dslr + lens + tripod, or can it be used with dslr + telescope combinations?

I have recently searched for information on different approaches to astro-photography. On the major Norwegian photography forum (www.foto.no), users of Canikon talk about checking out the Pentax K5 because of its compatibility with Astrotracer, and thereby its suitability for astro-photography. I really do not understand much of this? Is it a kind of GPS system that compensates for the earth`s rotation? Do any of you have any experience with Astrotracer?

The Norwegian forum discusses this link:

http://forums.dpreview.com/forums/readflat.asp?forum=1036&message=39284452&chang...

Bjørn

Very good shots! The images display lovely colors and are very sharp. My favorites are 1 + 3.

Bjørn

In my opinion you have managed to capture a lot of expressiveness and humor in this series. My favorites are number 2 and 4. The "onion man" (french character?) is slightly blurred on my monitor, but that does not have any negative impact on an otherwise good image. I also wonder what this "Railway at War" event is about?

Bjørn

Mike-P: Wow - that was quite a transformation! Thank you so much for showing me how to improve my photo Could I possibly ask you what parameters you adjusted in your editing?

Bjørn

Thank you Mike-P and ChrisA for giving me such valuable advice! I agree with you ChrisA, I need to spend time and learn more about post processing images. I do my photo editing on an old Mac Powerbook with a 15" display, maybe it would be easier, at least with these kinds of images, if I also had a larger display.

BTW: ChrisA: I like your version of my unedited image!

Thank you
Bjørn