curiousmike1300

You say you have a 1.2TB cache, but you have three 1TB drives so there's some math off there. Your machine sounds great - fast CPU, lots of RAM, fast disks. The only two thoughts I have on this are ...

If you think she wants something other than what she asked for, You can find the Olympus OM-D EM10 first edition for $399 on Amazon with kit lens. It has a touchscreen. It has wifi so it can ...

https://support.nikonusa.com/app/answers/detail/a_id/2556/~/image-file-name%2F-numbering-sequence

Those guys, with tracking mounts, will do many-many-many minutes if not hours. Also, have you ever seen the technique of stacking filters on your camera so that you can take a multi-hour exposure ...

Bob - The first shot of the tent is very nice - good composition - just pull your truck forward 10 feet next time.  :) You can clearly see the Andromeda Galaxy in the shot - very cool.

Focusing on stars in LiveView is a bit tricky, but the basics are. 1 Set your ISO to ~6400 (it won't need to stay here, but it helps with the procedure) 2 If your lens is AF, set it to Manual Focus. ...

I'll second the astro forum recommendation. I'll also suggest that finding a 1.4 or 1.8 lens will help lower the ISO (and hence, noise.)

D7200's extra resolution and smaller size/weight, while modest, would be useful in your above situations.   Which you list as most important.

You have some great action shots of the Ospreys and some decent shots of Kingfishers. I'd be happy with a lot of those.   ( Maybe some perspective for you ?)

Really excellent.   Thanks for taking the time to describe this process ( with images too ! )

Most of your problem is you're doing this in the city and just picking up ambient light. Hopefully when you go out of the city, you'll be much further from city lights and you won't contend with a ...

I was out from 10pm until 3:20 a.m. Thursday night with *three cameras. I was out Friday from 10:30 pm until 3:30 a.m. Friday night with same cameras. Total with *three cameras over both nights = ...

Thanks for the comment.   I agree the big one is disruptive, but that was its angle. Maybe it wasn't a Perseids?

From Mt. Hamilton in San Jose, California. There are usually zero people at the top of the observatory - Thursday night there had to have been >  500 people, many in sleeping bags on the middle of ...

It's maddening and I'm swimming against the stream !

Assuming untracked, 30 seconds should be fine. If in doubt, consider using 500/focal length to determine exposure time. i.e., 500/24mm = 20 seconds - this should help to minimize star-trailing ...

On the west coast of the USA, I'm understanding the peak will be Thursday night into Friday morning.

I'm not sure I'm understanding what you mean by "resolution";  I'm thinking of resolution as raw pixels - i.e., the D5200 and D610 both have ~ 24mp. I'm also fairly certain that the 24 f/1.4 ...

1. D610 + 24 f/1.4 = 24mm @24mp 2. D5200 + 35/f1.8 = 52mm @24mp 3. Olympus OMD + 14 f/2.8 adapted = 28mm @16mp My idea is to use the D610 to create a an initial vertical pano of ... 3-4 verticals wide.

This is a great tip !