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Hi Eeda
I initially went down the DSLR route. Trouble with dual use of the camera for astro and general camera use is that the infrared filter in the camera severely restricts the capture of red nebulosity. I bought a second hand Canon 400D and I took the camera apart and removed this filter. This renders the camera useless for ordinary photography (but could be solved by the use of an external IR filter?) The 400D then worked fine for astro use for images up to about 5 minutes when camera noise starts to become a problem.
I made a Peltier cooler for it but then it became too bulky and I considered that the gain in noise performance was not very much.
So I then bought a second hand QHY8 colour astro camera with a similar
size sensor to the 400D (23.6x15.7mm). This camera is peltier cooled to about -40deg C and I am able to take 30minute single images with negligible camera noise and negligible blooming on bright stars.
My advice would be to get separate cameras for normal and astro
use - maybe an extra expense but it is well worth it if you are serious
about astro imaging.
Cheers Peter
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