Depending on your affordability, why don't you go for a secondhand 20D or 30D, they are reasonably priced and if you contact our Eric from IIS he may even have a modded one for you, or he could certainly get one for you.
The 20 D's are a top camera for what you want to do.
Gday UK1
I'm real new when it comes to all this stuff ,here's what I think about the Canon EOS 1000D
IMHO it way outshines the old Nikon D70 I had.
I found the camera a breeze to understand setup and configure.
ISO and exposure settings easily adjusted.
Time delay to reduce vibration works great.
Mirror locked and liveview are excellent features and make focusing easy.
The camera is light at 450 grams
The battery seems to last for ever , I've charged it 3 times in the 4 months I've owned it (is that normal , about 400 photo's with varying exposure settings upto 30 secs, not all astro)
I only have a standard eq5 mount (manual control) with a 203mm f/5 newt ,so most photo's I have taken have the worst of tracking errors so I never posted them. But I'm impressed with them.
I do prime focus AP and projection photography
All the photo's here have been halved (some45%) in pixels and compressed 70%
The 1000D is a good entry level DSLR, but personally I would go for the 450D (also known as Rebel XSi from memory). The 450D is only slightly more expensive if you shop around, and worth the extra money IMO. The two are quite similar though, and you won't go wrong with a 1000D.
I have a 1000D, and I am happy with it. It's my first DSLR, and I want to use if for both astronomy and normal photography so I didn't get it modified. here is a pic of M42 taken with it from light polluted western sydney using just 30 second exposures (crop from a larger image), and here is a pic of the moon as well.
What lenses did you get with the 1000d. I am looking at buying the 1000d at the moment, and cant decide whether to pay the extra to get the IS lenses, considering most of the time the thing is going to be piggybacked on my ETX125.
I am a cheap skate, but also dont want something that is going to under perform.
I purchased a 1000d last week in Sydney and payed $700 for the body only. I have a 350d and use the lens off it on the 1000d so I didn't need a new lens. The 1000d is very similar to the 350d but has 10mp compared to 8mp and the best feature and why I bought it was for the liveview. It makes focusing so much easier and more precise. I found focusing through the viewer very difficult on the 350d.
I am very happy with the 1000d and it did not totally break the bank.
Frank
What lenses did you get with the 1000d. I am looking at buying the 1000d at the moment, and cant decide whether to pay the extra to get the IS lenses, considering most of the time the thing is going to be piggybacked on my ETX125.
I am a cheap skate, but also dont want something that is going to under perform.
Trev
I bought mine with the cheap twin lens kit - the 18-55 + 75-300 (both non IS)
I was also looking at the 450D, I was then turned around to a second hand 350D. Unfortunately timings being as they were, I had finance and no sales around, so bought a new 1000D with the cheap non IS twin lens kit for less than 850 aus.
Non astro photo' are just brilliant and the camera is very easy to use, even for someone like me who really has no idea!
I'm dabbling at prime focus through an ed80 mounted on a EQ6 pro and here are a couple of examples.
To say I'm very happy with the 1000D is an understatement. It allows me to easily change settings, and see the results, focus through live view and concentrate on getting some of the other factors like polar alignment and such right.
How does everyone find the normal 18-55mm and 75-300mm non IS lenses for terrestrial pictures. I am wondering if it is worth it to go the extra $300 for the IS kit.
Remembering we are in a recession and money is tight, and I don't qualify for that "Ruddy" Bonus.
Would like some Views on an ESO Cannon 1000D camera 
please for Astroimaging, as Cannon have stopped making the 40D, cant afford the 50D 
