If you already have a digital camera, that's the one you should get started with. Even if you don't have any kind of telescope or other astronomical equipment, you can still take pictures of the Moon, constellations, star trails, and wide-angle scenic twilight shots.

Before you buy anything, ask yourself these questions:

• What kind of pictures do you want to take?
• What is the best kind of camera to take them with?
• How much do you want to spend?
• How deep do you want to get into it?

Think seriously about these subjects before you decide which camera to buy. The best camera for you depends on the answers to these questions!

In any event, you will be best served by not rushing out and buying the first telescope or camera that you see at the nearest discount store. Join an astronomy club, meet the members, and go to a star party and use their telescopes. See what kinds of cameras they are using and what kinds of results they are getting. Find out which kind of astronomical objects you are most interested in photographing, and then research which cameras and scopes are best at that specialty. If you don't live near a club, then get on the internet and see what kinds of equipment people are shooting with. There you can see a wide variety of different astronomical subjects taken with all kinds of different cameras.

What Kind of Pictures Do You Want to Take?

There are different kinds of astrophotography and different cameras excel at different aspects of the hobby.

• Scenic
  

  Earthshine	Big Dipper	Aurora
  The photo of the Moon and Earthshine was taken with a lens at 135mm of focal length. The image of the Big and Little Dippers was taken with a 16mm lens. Both were shot with a Canon 20Da DSLR camera by the author. The image of the aurora was taken with a Canon G2 DSC camera by Lane Davis. All were taken on a fixed tripod.

  Scenic astrophotography would include wide-angle shots such as the crescent Moon setting in the twilight or the constellations. Photographs of atmospheric phenomenon, such as the aurora would also be included. This category doesn't have strict definitions, but pretty much anything you can shoot on a fixed tripod with a relatively short exposure of about 30 seconds or less.

  
  
• Planetary
  

  Jupiter	Saturn	Mars
  All three of these planetary photos were taken with a Canon T2i (550D) DSLR and Celestron C11 Edge with a 3x Barlow and captured as videos.

  Planetary photography encompasses the Sun, Moon, and planets of the solar system. Planetary photography requires high-resolution to pick out tiny details on planets such as Jupiter and Mars, as well as small craters on the Moon and details in sunspots. These objects are bright, so exposure is not the problem, but "seeing" or atmospheric steadiness is.

  
  

• Deep Sky

  Pleiades	Veil Nebula	M51
  The Pleiades were taken with a 300mm lens and the Veil Nebula with a 5 inch refractor. Both were shot with a Canon 20Da DSLR camera. M51 was taken with an SBIG ST-10XME CCD camera through a 14 inch Schmidt-Cassegrain Telescope. All were taken by the author on a equatorial mountings tracking the stars.

  Deep-sky astrophotography includes the real jewels of the night sky: star clusters, nebulae and galaxies. These objects require long-exposures and low-noise cameras.

What's the Best Kind of Camera to Take Them With?

• Scenic - Scenic astrophotography can be done with a DSC or DSLR camera. The larger sensors in DSLRs provide a higher signal-to-noise ratio in the image and produce a better picture however.

• Planetary - The best solar system photography is being done by video cameras which capture hundreds or thousands of frames at a time. Special software then examines each frame and picks out the really sharp ones where the seeing was good and combines them to reduce the noise inherent in the imaging system.

  Inexpensive web cams revolutionized planetary photography. Because they had digital sensors, they were more sensitive than film, and could shoot many frames per second in video format. More advanced versions of this type of video camera are also available that are made specifically for planetary imaging and shoot at very high framing rates, but that are more expensive.

  Some DSLRs, such as Canon's 550D (Digital Rebel T2i), 60D, and 60Da also have a special movie crop mode that will shoot high-resolution video at 60 frames per second that is great for planetary photography. Other Canon DSLRs can have their Live View video feed recorded at 5x magnification that is also excellent for high-resolution planetary photography.

  If you already have a telescope and computer, you can do high-resolution planetary work for a couple of hundred dollars by buying a good webcam. If you have a Canon DSLRs with Movie Crop Mode or Live View, you can also use that to do excellent planetary photography.

• Deep Sky - Deep-sky astrophotography requires a very different type of camera, one that can take long exposures of several minutes with low noise.

  Dedicated astronomical CCD cameras reduce noise by cooling the camera many dozens of degrees below the ambient temperature and can take outstanding deep-sky astrophotos, but must be hooked up to a computer for control and downloading images. Specialized narrowband imaging can also be done best by monochrome cooled astronomical CCD cameras.

  DSLR cameras can also be used for deep-sky imaging if they have low inherent noise and many exposures are combined together to further reduce noise.

  Inexpensive CCD cameras with extremely small chips can be purchased for $300. A good astronomical CCD camera with a decent sized chip can cost anywhere from $1,500 to $10,000.

  A good low-noise DSLR camera can cost from $350 to $1,000.

If you have been in the hobby of astronomy for some time, you may have an interest in one of these particular areas and want to specialize in it. If you do know, then get the kind of camera that is best for that particular type of astrophotography. If you don't know, or want to experiment, then a DSLR camera would be a good choice because it can do them all, and it can also be used for normal daytime photos.

No matter what kind of astrophotos you want to take, spend some time on the internet and with the popular astronomy magazines looking at the best astrophotography to see what kind of camera they were taken with. You will find that the same names keep coming up again and again, both in the photographers that excel in these realms, and also in the equipment that they use.

How Deep Do You Want to Get Into Astrophotography?

How much time do you want to devote to this hobby? If you just want to go out and take some snapshots in the twilight, then all you will need is an inexpensive DSC camera and tripod.

If you already have a telescope and all you want to do is hook up the camera you have now and shoot some pictures of the moon, all you'll need is a adapter to connect your camera to the scope.

If you are really in love with the pictures you see of galaxies and nebulae, and you want to take these kinds of pictures, you are going to have to commit yourself to spending time and effort on the learning curve. If you want to pursue excellence, you are going to have to work at it and develop your expertise. You are also going to have to have the financial resources to buy equipment that is good enough to let you accomplish this goal.

A lot also depends on what kind of astrophotography you want to do. For example, high-resolution planetary imaging will require a very different scope and camera than long-exposure deep-sky.

Honestly though, if you haven't even used a telescope yet but want to buy a camera and telescope to take astrophotos, I would strongly advise against just going out and buying something without doing some research. There are a lot of telescopes out there that are not very good for astrophotography. Find a local astronomy club and go out observing with them when they have a "star party" and look through a lot of different scopes and ask a lot of questions.

A good decision on equipment will depend on how critical you want to be, and how deep into the hobby of astrophotography you want to get.

You might not be interested in being the absolute best in the world at whatever you decide to specialize in, or you might not want to specialize at all. You can still be happy and find it tremendously rewarding to just take pretty pictures and do it as well as you can do it.

For long-exposure deep-sky work, DSLR cameras offer an extremely attractive alternative to dedicated cooled astronomical CCD cameras. They offer a much wider field of view at the same resolution, at a more reasonable price. The biggest advantages of DSLRs are that they don't need a computer to take pictures, and can also be used for normal daytime photography, so you can tell your mate that you will also be able to take great family pictures with it!