hi Jas,
to take realtime pics of nebulae and other objects, you might have to look at video astronomy.
This uses very sensitive security ccd cameras and feeds video in realtime.
so you can see objects in colour instantly although the resolution is low.
you can then take screen captures.
this is how you'd take instant images.
other option is to use a colour ccd or a dslr to image objects. this requires a reasonably accurate mount capable of tracking with motors.
if you then polar align the mount carefully, you can start taking 30 second to 60 second exposures without the stars trailing. at this exposure length, you will see details of bright nebulae like eta carina. but galaxies and other fainter objects require much longer exposures to reveal any detail. Software like Deepskystacker is used to combine these 30 or 60sec images to bring out more detail and reduce noise.
the video astronomy cameras are typically 0.0001 lux low light cameras so they can display these faint objects in real time or 30second exposures without any processing.
a good start is to get a second hand canon dslr from ebay and put that on your mount using the camera lens and take 30 second exposures to get some widefield images.
what mount and scope do you have or plan to buy?
really depends what you want to image, how much you're willing to spend and how complex or accurate you want it to be.
the night skies network is a good site where you can join and see "live" feeds from users around the world who transmit their video images from the telescopes. you can take a look at screen grabs to see what they look like.
http://www.nightskiesnetwork.com/
typical cameras are the samsung security cameras or the gstar-ex.
useful links
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JHiCNmYdkaE
this shows live footage from a modded video security camera.
http://www.ssmassey.com/vidast.html
http://www.myastroshop.com.au/guides/gstar/
Cheers
Alistair
