michaelcw,
Thanks for that! I have used Andrews before and there is no doubt there is a huge selection in my price range, which only makes the choice even more confusing
but that's a good thing.
I have been thinking a lot about what iceman asked about astrophotography and also spending a great deal of time looking at the pictures many users have posted here and I'm getting more and more tempted to give it a go. It looks like a Philips toucam may be the ideal way to start.
I have another question though related to this. I see that it will require an IR filter which I assume will cut down on noise? Looking around I have found a few different IR filters but I have also seen some combined IR/UV filters. My guess would be this filters out all wave lengths other then the visible spectrum and so in effect the sensor only pics up that visible light resulting in clearer images. Is this the case and if so would it be better to get a combined IR/UV filter or just a straight IR filter?