It took a while, but I knew video astronomy would eventually bite you when we talked about it all that time ago.
The GSTAR is the best bang for buck I reckon, the Mallincam Extreme is better, but costs over three times as much, and the GSTAR EX is pretty close in terms of quality.
I used it for outreach with a car DVD screen thingie that had video input, and it is great as people of all ages and all eyesight capability can view the images, and getting DSOs in colour is a real plus.
Having said that, for home use I grabbed a big old CRT telly from the Salvo's for $10, it looks *amazing* on the old TVs, much better than on an LCD screen.
Video astronomy is fantastic fun, you get the immediacy of visual astronomy, and the full colour and detail that astrophotography brings.
It is a great middle ground, and for me returned the joy of 'visual' again.
Steve, the comparison to visual, well, no comparison in my book. I haven't really used an eyepiece since getting a Mallincam. I attach the camera, run the cables to an old CRT TV back in the house and the kids and I control the scope from inside and view the targets on the TV.
The downside is the relatively low resolution video image, but you get colour, effectively in realtime and faint details that could never be seen visually.
There is a Mallincam userin Tassie, I'll see if I can dig his details up, maybe you could go take a look.
I have a mono GSTAR EX as well for solar work, and it displays wonderful detail on DSOs.
Jen, you could probably take a trip out to one of Ken's (
http://www.iceinspace.com.au/forum/member.php?u=98) viewing nights to check it out.