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OK, a late entry based on my silly post of that Sharpstar system (I honestly don't remember seeing this thread) have you had time and the opportunity to make any advances on this system JA?
Are you using some system of linked focus system to get all of the lenses precisely focused or is it a case of focus each lens precisely prior to imaging?
I know the Nikons while having good autofocus on terrestrial subjects even in low light, probably not great in the dark for the night sky but I'm basing that on a very old 80-200 f2.8 which was famous for it's seek and find even in daylight, I haven't tried my later 70-300 ED (so marked but apparently not ED, I'm confused as per usual) in the dark but I will soon now I have an old Astrotrac to play with.
I got the astrotrac because of my inability to set up permanent and haven't gotten to concreting the 600^3 (mm) hole for my pier yet.
Rome wasn't built in a day and very little I seem to do is ever achieved in under 2-5 years, not lazy, sick in the head. Glad I wasn't involved with building Rome (not in my dreams anyway), the place would be a series of useless columns standing in the middle of nowhere.
Wait, maybe I was there. LOL
The lack of a permanent set up I find my biggest hindrance, especially when I see the results people get with their permanent obs set ups. Even trying to image the Milky Way over multiple nights I always have trouble dealing with the varying rotation when trying to stack and possibly the slope in my yard giving an unrepeatable twist (I try and level my tripod before starting but often nudge it accidentally when moving around in the dark and tripping over things or re-adjusting the frame) and often give up. I have images I like (as do others) but nothing I'd call amazing like I constantly see on here. Throw in a bout of colour blindness and my images always end up with too much blue. My son has great eyes (deaf but great sight to compensate) and he helps me as best as he can.
I'd like to more be able to set up with 2 identical rigs so I don't need to pan for the entire MW even using full frame and 14mm f2.8 Samyong (Rokinon, I always forget, same thing).
I have one set of 3 or 4 12x8 prints I did which is the entire width of the visible MW and they make a very nice panorama, haven't found a frame to mount them in but I'll probably make my own frame and cut some glass I'd have laying around, carpentry and glazing are two old hobbies from many years back.
As I often say, one day I'll just drop dead and won't have to worry about all of the stuff I don't get to doing.
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