Hi eric,
This may sound silly, but, if you were a few years younger you would have started your imaging career with a 40D and definately would have produced some great images, the equal if not better than what you produced with the 350D.
My imaging skills are not in your class, but I recently moved up from a a 400D to a SBIG 2000 XCM. Initially it was a pain, i couldnt focus and it took me two months to come to grips with the software, focus, hardware etc. Now I can focus, but it's still a pain so I am getting a robo-focus.
Anyway, you say you already spend 90 minutes setting up, so do i. So i decided tp spend a bit of money to shorten this. After all we are out there to take photos not to practice our polar aligning and focus skills.
If you reckon DSLR focus is good then focus max etc is even better. There is so much software and hardware dedicated to astro cameras is not funny (just expensive
).
What am i trying to say, well, once you feel better get a QHY8 and stick with it for a bit, look around and see what average people can do with it and then imagine what after a few months of getting used to the camera you could produce.
At the moment obviously, a 350D is better for you, but a 40D is a better camera. If you want to image then i dont think you can do any better than what you have done with a DSLR, so rest for a bit, get a CCD and come baaaaaaaaaaaaack and go up to the next step.
Man that Canadian Club tasted pretty good
Paul