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Old 03-07-2007, 06:24 AM
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iceman (Mike)
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Join Date: Sep 2004
Location: Gosford, NSW, Australia
Posts: 36,761
Hi Nathan

I assume you mean Digital SLR?

There are a number of DSLR's that are suitable for both terrestrial and astrophotography use - the main ones are the Canon or Nikon's. Typical examples are the Canon 300D/350D/400D/20D/30D/5D or the Nikon D40/D80/D200.

There's more people on IIS that use Canon's, but that's not to say the Nikon's aren't any good. I think the Canon's are generally cheaper to buy and have a good reputation for low noise and high sensitivity. The lenses also appear to be a little cheaper.

What's your budget?
How much will you use it for terrestrial vs astro? Will you be using it on your C8?

The lenses you get are also important. The stock lenses that come with the camera are adequate, but have their flaws, specifically regarding CA (chromatic abberation - purple fringing around bright objects), coma and spherical distortion in the corners.

The best way to start for astrophotography is to mount the camera on top of the telescope in "pgigyback" mode, so you use the scope to simply track (or guiding later on, for the more advanced), and the camera+lens sit on top, taking a relatively widefield view of the stars.
This lets you get used to the settings on the camera, and the focal length is shorter which places less demands on your tracking accuracy. It also gets you used to processing astrophotography images, which is a challenge and an artform itself.
As you get more experience, you can get a focal reducer and use the C8 in prime focus mode (with your DSLR), where the camera replaces the eyepiece in the focuser. Here, the focal length is longer so you're getting more magnification on those deep space objects. It places more demands on your tracking accuracy, and so you'll want to do some guiding using a guidescope and camera.
As an introduction to guiding, most people would put an ED80 (or similar) on top of their C8 - image through the ED80 and guide through the C8. The ED80 is a faster scope, wider field of view, less focal length and therefore less challenging.

All of this is assuming you want to take photos of deep-space objects, not planets. That's a different story requiring different techniques and equipment.

I hope i've helped - keep asking questions!
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