Nikon reaches to stars! D810A

Finally Nikon also followed the road Canon started long back thro 20Da and 60Da but this time this new dark side baby is full frame with astronomical number of pixels similar to its sister D810 and seems it is going to be offered at about $3800.
Modifications includes modded filter to pass Hydrogen Alpha, modded ISO, and you can chose shutter upto 900 sec directly from camera all of the factory box, that is if you can afford it.

LINK

900 seconds is fifteen minutes... I could use that! I do a lot between two and 6 or 8 minutes and occasionally more than ten.

I don't do star trails but I suppose those who do will still have to stack.

Yes stacking is always needed in one way or another.

900 sec single shoot is only possible when you have an excellent polar aligned sky tracker, an accurate guidoscope and equally important, the knowledge of knowing how to use and then again, a jet black sky with no light pollution. If you are positive to all, then you can use it with this Nikon otherwise it is a feature that is provided and to my knowledge, no other camera has it.
Of course you can always use a cheap timer remote shutter release, or set your camera on B and turn it off only before morning light shines up but then...

at $3800, its a hell of a lot cheaper than many of the better quality CCD's on which you still need colour filters etc etc
and a huge pixels count to boot compared to many of the CCD imagers

If I wasn't already so heavily invested in Canon lenses etc, I would definitely go this path in a heartbeat
My only other real choice is to buy a 2nd hand 6D and remove the filters

It really has to be a serious contender for a hardcore astro-tog


cheers
Dave