Jeanette
Better than your DVD recorder which would no doubt use MPEG2 compression is your miniDV camera. If it has the ability you can either record from an external source to the miniDV tape or pass through via firewire link to you PC.
Check this out. Its called Drift Integration or Time Delay Integration, no need for tracking. Also you can integrate video taken over many nights.
http://www.cometdust.demon.co.uk/QCU...tion/index.htm
Drift Scan links.
http://www.driftscan.com/links.htm
Regards