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They way I have gone is firstly the webcam option cos it is cheaper (<$200 for camera and adapter). It means i can do planets. To get to this size of image, I had to have tracking. this cost me $600 for some motors to drive my newtonian on a dob base.
I have included a single image of when everything went pretty much to plan. This what you can see thru the laptop screen. This is pretty rare though. Generally, you have to stack 300 to 400 of these to make a final image.
The toucam and newer models are roughly equivalent to a 6mm eyepiece. So therefore this image is a 1250mm (my scope's focal length) divide 6mm (aprox for the toucam) = 208 x 7.7 (for my 5x powermate but with a 100mm extension) = 1600x.
You might get these types of conditions 5 times a year. Also it is a snapshot. The eye is quite forgiving and will pick up detail, if the object is moving around.
Planets aside, I will be spending the $1200 on a canon 350d for longer exposure deep space objects in the next few years.
The big question is not the quality of the camera, as what the guys on this site have produced with the canon 350d is outstanding. The question will be how good my tracking will be. For a planet, i am taking 1/10 shots. For longer exposure, I want to 30 seconds!!!
My gut feel is that I will need to spend another $1500 on a decent tracking mount.
As 1ponders mentioned, welcome to the money pit!
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