About a month ago I bid on and won a total of 7 lenses, 2 cameras and one of those hand grip thingies.  The cameras were both Mamiya/Sekor 1000DTL's, one of which was junk.

The lenes are, the standard 55mm, 2 35mm WA's, a 2X extender, a 85-210 zoom, a 200mm and a 300mm Teley.  The 200mm is a soligor and unfortunately is scratched up pretty good, I wonder how many zillions it would cost to polish it out and coat it.

Now all I have to do is get my barndoor tracker finished, my drive motor is a 1 RPM sync. but it's CCW so I have to whip up a gear train.  I'm gett'n there but it's a matter of trial error (mostly error) I'll get there though.

I used to have one of those very cameras! I loved it. Unfortunately, so did a thief who took advantage of a holiday season security lapse on my part and smashed in the hatchback window of my car to steal it and all my other camera gear back in '74.

One thing to check will be the light seal on the flip mirror. They crumble with age. For astrophotography I don't think that will matter except that it will make the camera shake more when the mirror slaps up during an exposure. I do not think that camera had mirror lock-up features ... the way around that will be to cover the lens, open and lock the shutter (cable release), wait for the camera to settle down, then uncover the lens when making an exposure.

I really loved that camera. It had two meters and the spot meter was dead accurate, as I recall. Again, not a biggie for astrophotography but I nice for daytime shooting.

Jeff:

Yup I like Mamiya's equipment.  When I was stationed at Cape Lisburne AK I bought 2 of them. One was a rangefinder w/onboard meter  and the other an SLR mod. CWP.  The CWP has a meter coupled to the shutter speed but it's also on the outside.  I've gotten a lot of really good pics with it.  I sold the rangefinder when I got back stateside.

I checked the DTL and sure-nuf the light seal is in pretty sad shape.  Now the question is what to replace it with, I reckon I'll have to rumenate on that a bit, but like you said it shouldn't bother astrophotography. 

There's a guy on eBay who sells replacements for various cameras. He sells a kit that includes the foam for the camera back seal, the fli--mirror seal, and (I think) a battery. I bought one of his kits a couple years back for an OM-1 and it was pretty good. If I remember right, it was about $20.

I have no idea what his eBay ID was. But do a search there on something like Olympus OM-1 Repair Kit and see what comes back.

If you can't find it, look at a hobby store for flat foam mats. You might be able to cut a piece to fit. The foam piece I got for the OM-1 was a rectangle (no seams) and it stretched very slightly to fit around the penta prism frame at the top. The mirror bumps into that when it flips up. As long as the thickness is right, the exact size and shape only matters in that if it's too small it'll vignette the view when focusing somewhat. The idea is to provide a cushion against mirror slap. It doesn't have to make a good seal.

The camera back is different. There you need a good, light-tight seal.

There is also a guy on eBay who sells camera manuals on CD. I think he gets the paper manuals and scans the pages, then puts them on CD. I bought one of those for my OM-1s and another for my Pentax MXs. Might come in handy if he also has one for the M/S. I think these were $5 or $10, something like that. Try searching for Mamiya Sekor Manual ...

jb