If someone says "no PP" and the shot is not in a bayer pattern, then he or she is lying.

Digital comes into its own in Astro work though, since we don't suffer from reciprocity failure and can punch the ISO up to 800 or so. Film still wins for really long exposures, but on the order of a few minutes at ISO 800 digital is far better. Plus stacking is a hell of a lot easier with digital so you can afford to go to high ISO and use stacking to kill the noise.

It's amazing what you can get with fairly basic kit.

That is the Andromeda Galaxy, which makes a nice target for fairly simple deep sky imaging since it is (just) naked eye visible.

Equipment was my K10D with Tamron SP 300mm F2.8 lens wide open. It was mounted on the driven equitorial mount from my newtonian telescope to allow me to do long(ish) exposures without star trails. If I recall correctly, it is a composite of about 20 2 minute exposures stacked with a program called Registax. It's cropped a bit but not much, Andromeda is actually quite large.

A long refractor like yours is best suited to the moon and planets since you don't really have a large enough light gathering area for deep sky. Saying that though, I have got some nice views of the ring nebula through my 4.5" Newtonian and that's something like F9.5 so brighter objects are worth looking for.

I actually bought my telescope especially to get the driven mount it came with!

I want to give the great nebula in Orion a go, but haven't had a chance yet.

since a large part of Tokina's lineup is currently co-developed with Pentax, I'd be willing to bet the deal is Pentax make it in KAF, Tokina make it in everything else they see fit.

Imperial measures are inhearantly easier to estimate in.

An inch is about the length of the end bit of your thumb, a foot is about the length of your foot, a yard is about a pace.

I am a product of the British education system of the 90s, and as such am reasonably comfortable with both systems. I use SI units strictly in my work (I'm a physicist) and any time I measure anything precisely, but I use imperial almost exclusively for estimates.

All systems have their plusses and minuses, use what works best for the task at hand.

you are not alone, there are others here into Astro photos!

I just haven't done any for a while. You just wait until you get bitten by the deep sky bug, then you'll really be for it!

[IMG]http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v68/thatguypinchedmyname/andromeda-s.jpg[/IMG]

K10D with Tamron 300mm F2.8 and a driven mounting.

Hi there, and welcome to the forum!

I am not familiar with the software you mention, but my guess is that it is designed to edit JPG images as one might obtain from a point and shoot camera. The Raw images your DSLR produces contain more data than a JPG, and are often not supported by more basic editing software.

Do not dispair however, you can use so called "raw converter" software to "develop" your Raw files into JPGs which you can edit in your editor of choice.

There are a lot of raw converters on the market, all have their strengths. Many people here like Silkypix Developer Studio which has two versions, a free one and a more advanced paid for version.

Initially you will probably find that the Pentax Lab software which came with your camera gives you all the control you need. It was quite a while before I decided I needed anything more complicated than that.

From the Pentax Photo Browser software, there is an option to "open in photo lab". This will open the photo in a new window with various options to crop, rotate, adjust colour ballance and exposure etc. Once you are happy with these sliders, you can save the resulting image as a JPG or TIFF file which you can then edit further in any photo editor if you need to.

The great thing about Raw development is that you never change the original raw file, so you can always go back and start again if you decide you made a mistake the first time around.


Of course, while Raw is the format of choice for many of us here, some find that simply setting your camera to maximum quality JPG and being careful with the settings in the field produces equally superb final results.

hope this helps.

but surely it's only incorrect if the poster intends it to be Spanish, as a quote of Arnie it is precisely correct.

so what on is the practical use of that?

5 bonus points for the person who guesses what I had inside the less thans

There's a thread over in General Photography where people have offered to lend a hand to any who need help. Generally I believe the suggestion is to find a mutually convinient public house and discuss cameras over a pint.

If there is a person nearby who owns a K20D perhaps you could take advantage. If it's ergonomics you are mostly concerned with, even a K10D would help you since they handle very much the same. The major differences are in technical specs.

Welcome to the forum