You’re most welcome Kaye. Being brand new at this myself, I’m still in the first flush of enthusiasm and I’m enjoying any chance to waffle on about the topic! My wife’s eyes now rapidly glaze over at the mention of the word “stars”…
Your 6D is a great camera and should be ideal for the job. Lucky you.
I have a 600D and a 7D. Either works fine but the 600D is a fair bit lighter to attach to a telescope, so it’s a bit easier to balance.
When I said that I didn’t use a telescope for the moon shots, I meant that I didn’t use an astronomy style telescope. Strictly speaking, zoom lenses like the one that I did use are also called telescopic lenses and the general principle is much the same. They’re just optimised for different purposes. I usually take photos of the birds and other wildlife that share our bush block, so I have a comparatively long zoom lens. They work OK for moon shoots because the moon is so bright and it’s a decent size. The main game was getting the right light settings so that I didn't just get a washed out white disc with no detail.
One more tip about using a tripod for sky shots. When you tilt the camera upwards you will probably find (as I did) that it will only go so high before something hits and it can’t be tilted up as high as you want for some star shots. Don’t be tempted to get more angle by adjusting the legs on the tripod as you’ll make it unstable. Guess how I know that?
Obviously, the main danger with tripods is that if they’re accidentally knocked over it can badly damage the camera. And when you’re working in the darkest conditions you can get, and crouching at odd angles to get the view you need, the risk of knocking a leg of a tripod is increased.
What worked for me was reversing the direct of the little tripod plate that screws under the camera. I turned the arrow that says “lens” 180 degrees
away from the lens. One of the adjusting handles was then in the “wrong” place but it was still perfectly usable and would then go as high as I want.
The moon is often visible in the sky during the day, so you could practice on that to get a feel for distances, effectiveness of various lens lengths and angles - all while you can see well! Then when you’re literally in the dark some of the other settings are already more familiar to you and you mostly have light levels to experiment with.
All the best with it. I hope we get to see some of your shots.