My Tasco scope needs extreme care to focus on the moon through the K100d, (not yet tried it with the K7's brighter viewfinder/liveview). So it's not a foregone conclusion.

Zoomed out to 1000mm (f16) it's possible, at 4000mm (f64) diffraction limiting means nothing come to focus via the camera.

No doubt the 560 will outclass my Tasco by a huge margin. Better start saving...

The future is Yellow.

Personally I hope the more subtle colours remain available, but Orange is certainly a possibility, it's been used for the Kr IIRC.

Hi Chris
Long lenses are generally difficult to use effectively, and good long lenses are ££££.
Sigma do a range of zooms that will take you to 500mm (a 50-500, a 150-500 & a 170-500 IIRC) all out of my price bracket (typically £500-1000) Top quality long Pentax primes, are rare & even more expensive.
Mirror lenses are much lighter to use, and whilst generally not as good as the sigma zooms CAN give reasonable results. (They give donut bokeh if there are out of focus highlights) Depth of field with the f6.3 will be even less than my old f8, and the aperture of mirror lenses can't be changed. In addition mirror lenses are manual focus so this could give you further difficulties if your not used to focusing. At least the K20 has a nice bright viewfinder unlike the K100 I used mine with.

You don't mention which 300mm lens and which teleconverter you've tried.
Many of the converters I've used are worse than just zooming in digitally. Have you tried the 300 on its own?

I assume you've made sure the problem isn't just camera shake - My cheaper tripods couldn't hold a 300mm & TC without sagging. Handheld you want ~1/500s or better...

I think there are quite a few people on the lookout for PKA tubes, their prices always seem to shoot up. You might be lucky & see a set miss described but with the contacts, but I've given up trying.

You can get a low quality PKA teleconverter & remove the glass, but they tend to be rather long IMO.
What I'd really like would be a PKA helicoid - but I don't think they were ever made. My M42 helicoid is great for enlarger lenses, but apertures on those are always fully manual anyway...

I really don't think the ME super is more serious than the MX...

The important word in the listing is mechanical refering to the linkages present in the original K mount to transfer information on the selected aperture & to close down the aperture when actually taking a shot. These links are not present in the 'crippled' mounts of DSLRs.

With the K10 & kit lens you'd have no control of aperture at all.
I've got a similar set from the days of my ME.

It's all a case of horses for courses. I'd certainly prefer a optical view finder for most of my photography - but in some cases liveview is better.

It seems to me that the K-01 is intended as much as a video camera as a stills one.
Not ideal for me but I suspect my wife would prefer it to the K5!
I there's not been a single DSLR pentax have produced that hasn't dropped of one or more features from it's predessesor(s) that I'd like available. The K-01 adds some features not in the K5 that might well prove useful, if they are added to the K5's replacement I don't doubt pentax will remove another useful feature to make way.

The focus peaking sounds very interesting (and may answer the question on focusing the 300) but for me the DSLR still wins.

From what I've heard fungal spores are EVERYWHERE i.e. there are already spores in the camera.
Infected lenses will have higher concentrations of spores it's true but the important point is to make sure the conditions are not right for the spores to take hold & grow. Keeping the lens dry & well aired goes a long way towards this - a little UV helps too (perhaps).

I have to admit I'm tempted as my K7 came with a French manual - something the seller failed to mention.

It did come with the lighthouse guide though so I'm not sure if I need the original.

I'd assume they project to far inside and thus foul on the mirror.
The Photos of one mounted on a K5 are almost certainly photoshopped. Adam on Pentaxforums had details of the K-01 in advance, but according to his posts today hasn't yet had the chance to play with it. The K5 in question is his...