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Jakob,
$500 won't go far to start in astrophotography, it may not even get you a tripod, let alone a telescope. Besides you already have a telescope, what do you think a camera lens is anyway? I think you need to look at what astrophotography involves. I work exclusively with dslr and no telescope these days for various reasons. For me taking a photo in the camera is NOT astrophotography, taking hundreds of photos, registering and integrating them to a single 64bit/pixel image to start processing to a final photo is what "dslr astrophotography" means to me.
There are many ways to take astrophotos but they all depend on starting with the "foundation" of your setup which in your case is the tripod/mount.
A solid tripod is essential and typically at the "cheap" end of the market a tripod includes the mount. Camera tripods are not usually up to the task of a telescope tripod.
On top of the tripod is the mount, the bit that you attach a telescope to and itself firmly attaches to the tripod. The mount gives you movement controls (manual or electrical) to point the scope/camera at different parts of the sky. Mounts typically come in two options: ALT/AZ and EQ. ALT/AZ gives you controls to move up/down and left/right. This is best for visual astronomy (ie just looking through an eyepiece) and is inuitive to navigate the sky with. EQ mounts are for astrophotography, cheap manual EQ mounts tend to be too unstable to be practical. EQ mounts need to be aligned every time you drag them outside to either the north or south celestial poles (depending which hemisphere you use them in). As the earth rotates the stars appear to move in an arc across the sky, the aligned EQ mount lets you point a scope/camera in relation to this movement. An electrical EQ mount can "track" the star movement by moving at the same rate in the opposite direction, the practical upshot being you can take a long exposure photo and the stars stay as points and don't streak.
Mounts use dovetail joints to attach a telescope to them and you can buy suitable dovetail plates to attach to a camera.
GOTO mounts are computerised with their own handset controls (they don't need a seperate computer to use). They still need to be polar aligned and also star aligned, then you can call up a target on the handset and it will slew (move) to that target. You can star align with your camera on the mount instead of a telescope, makes no difference.
A good starting point for you might be an EQ5 Goto tripod/mount (around $1,200) which would be solid for astrophotography with your current gear right now. You can save for a telescope later to put on the mount if you want. You'll also need a suitably sized dovetail plate for the mount that can attach to your camera and a rechargable power pack for the mount.
If you go for anything less you will likely find it is useless for you even an EQ5 you may feel the need to upgrade from later on but it will serve well for years. Check the For Sale area on the forum, EQ5 and EQ6 mounts come up often enough and this is gear people look after so there's little risk buying second hand.
The Star Adventurer that Colin linked to above is also a good way into astrophotography if you know you dont want an Optical Tube Assembly (OTA, telescope). The Vixen Polarie is another similar product and there are others. The are basically a compact motorised mount you attach to a regular camera tripod and attach a camera to them. They rotate with the stars and let you take long exposures without streaking stars. They still need to be polar aligned and they just rotate, they dont point in different directions, you usually attach a ball head to them and attach the camera to the ball head to let you point to whatever part of the sky you want. I use a Vixen Polarie and it works great but not with my DSLR as its too heavy (its under the weight rating of the Polarie) so I use it with a compact camera.
Be aware there is no perfect solution and many ways to proceed. Plus you still need to learn about image registration/integration and processing. You will find weight a common spec on gear and you should avoid exceeding 50% of the weight capacity of a tripod/mount as they can be less dependable under stress. Astrophotography really depends on precision and not relying on photoshop to fix it later because you got the wrong gear now.
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