I've been perusing the threads and haven't really found anything in the realm of afocal astro-photography.  My budget is such, right now, that this would be the only means of exploring astro-photography.  I have $600 budget to spend on a telescope and have narrowed it down to a select few and will couple the scope with a Nikon coolpix 8700 with the use of a bracket mounted on the eye piece.  My main interests are planetary and stellar viewing and am willing to learn the possible painstaking talent of manual tracking.  I guess I'm looking for some feedback from some experienced individuals who have gone through the same thing.  Any posts from you all would be greatly appreciated!  Thanks much for the help!

Even for afocal photography, you're going to need a scope on an equatorial mount that's at least driven in RA and with a manual control for adjustments in DEC.

The afocal mounts from Rigel Systems or Lumicon are the best type.

Don't know what the camera you have can do, but you need some manual control of it. Focus, exposure, and aperture. If it takes movies, you probably can even experiment with film clips processed in Registax.

It's a lot of experimenting. For stills it's best to start out with a LP EP that has a decent eye relief. Work at getting a focus, live view really helps here, if not a zoom feature on the display can let you magnify a picture and check for focus. To start with try the low resolution JPEGs because it's faster. Try different ISO's and as long an exposure as the camera will give you.

I have a little Canon P&S and was surprised at how well it did. 

thanks for the response!  The coolpix is pretty versatile for what I need.  it's got various settings for shutter speed, aperture and ISO adjustment.  Beyond that, I was wondering if it would be helpful for manually tracking my objects to use. . .and i'm not sure of the name but i've seen them advertised. . .a multiple-eyepiece setup since I won't have a guide scope. . .yet!.  Again, I'm not sure what it's called so i'm going to explain it further.  It's a setup which has one eyepiece dedicated for photography and then another eyepiece that would be for viewing and tracking.

 I'm not sure what you're referring to. A turret? Maybe a bino-viewer? Either one, you don't want or need. Afocal used to be primarily used for simple things like moon photographs. But, the advent of inexpensive digitals has allowed even some deep sky photography. First off, and all important, is that your mount be carefully polar aligned. Then wing it. Don't worry about guiding. Do test shots till you see stars beginning to trail, that'll give you an idea just how long your mount can track without corrections. Even inexpensive mounts can often give 30 seconds or more of good tracking and show nice stars as long as magnification is held down.

Yes, it was the turret set-up that I was referring to.  I thought that it would help with manually tracking for longer exposures if I was able to see through the eyepiece.  Anyways, thanks for all the help, it's much appreciated. . .now it's time to get the show on the road and get to snapping pics!

It's called a radial guider. The turret holds multiple eyepieces but only one at a time can be used. The radial guider allows the light to pass straight through the tube to the camera, but a tiny pickoff prism diverts some of the light at a right angle through another tube to a standard eyepiece. The prism rotates around the periphery of the field of view to help in locating a guide star.

This one is Lumicon's and is called the Easy Guider:

It will be tedious to use this on dim targets, but it's the way astrophotography was done with film cameras for decades.

For planets, a standard digital camera will work well if the camera has a "movie" mode. You can use that to display the image on the camera's LCD, which will help in aiming and focusing. From the captured AVI you can use programs like Registax to capture the best single frames and stack them to form an improved final image. This can result in surprisingly good images. At public observing events I often setup my 6" refractor and encourage people to do this. Some of them have produced exceptional images even with the tiny cameras embedded in cell phones!

You do not need the guider for lunar and planetary imaging, because they are bright enough for even very short exposures. For the Moon, start by using the same exposure you'd use for daytime snapshot photography. For the planets, use Movie mode if you have it. Otherwise experiment as John suggested. You'll find that at ISO 800 or above even very short exposures of 1/25th to 1/100th second would be a good starting point. You can simply hold the camera up to the eyepiece and shoot without using a camera platform, T-adapter, or bracket.

For dimmer targets, you need a way to affix the camera to the eyepiece adapter. One way is to use an eyepiece projection adapter. This is a tube that slides into the focuser and holds an eyepiece in second tube that slides over the first, allowing you to change the magnification. The camera threads on the back end of the sliding tube. If your camera has removable lenses, this is the method to use.

For cameras without removable lenses, you use a camera platform (often called a DigiCam or DigiScoping adapter), like this one from Lumicon:

The camera affixes to the platform using its tripod socket, and the adapter clamps around the eyepiece or focuser tube.

 

im a noob also, but i think thats a good thing, its fun to not know, so far the fun part has been learning and experimenting!!

im also on a budget....just got a xt10 dob, which everyone tells me is bad to photo stuff, but its a start, and they sell tracking mounts i can eventually upgrade to, or make one

i got a crap camera....kodak easyshare c743..point and shoot type.....just bought a mount for it ( was using an old converted microphone stand i had lying around from the last hobby )

long exposure, tracking, guiding, and all these people that have all the gear, that makes NASA jealous seem to forget what its like to be a noob. its thrilling and fun to set goals!

my advice, since i got a few weeks on ya.........spend some time with what you got, experiment, and save. what i knew a week ago, or what i thought i knew, are 2 totaly different things.

once you get the hang of it, and learn a few tricks that YOU discovered, not only will you have a little more pride in your fuzzy pics, but you will also have saved enough by the time you get the hang of it to know what works for you.

last night, i was all ready to get my first shot of saturn when my batteries died, and ill tell ya, from looking at others pics, mine would have been pretty good , for the budget gear i can afford.

but thats the whole thing about this pass time......

bottom line ..........if it puts a smile on your face, and makes your hair stand....your in the right direction, and, the only bad gear, is the gear you dont use enough!!!!

ok, this is what I found for an adapter. . .and the following is what the product description says. . . This adapter can be adjusted to any focal length with the adjustment knobs on the adapter.  These make the adapter extremely stable and more than strong enough to attach the camera to any scope as well.  For filter use the adjustment comes in handy to eliminate vignetting.  It has a 52mm thread for addition of telephoto and wide angle lenses as well.

 

So, the question is, am I on the right track for starting out with this and connecting the camera right to the scope without an eyepiece or would using the bracket method or just holding the camera over the eyepiece work better?

That adapter is for prime-focus astrophotography (no eyepiece used). In this mode, the telescope acts like a telephoto lens of the equivalent focal length. The only thing the adjustment buys you in this mode is a means of vignetting avoidance, although it will be slight. This adapter is the equivalent of an extension tube with filter threads on one end.

An afocal adapter has an insert for an eyepiece, with a screw to secure the eyepiece. In that mode, the camera is held at the right position to use the eyepiece to enlarge the image.

If you're planning to manually guide the scope, do it without the eyepiece, using the adapter you've shown here. It provide much lower magnification and that, in turn, will make manual guiding much easier. It will be very difficult with an eyepiece in place.

The adapter you've shown here probably will not work with a radial guider. It's a 2" accessory and most radial guiders are 1.25" size.

A potential problem with this adapter is that it allows only about 1/2" or so of the adapter to extend inside the focuser tube. That may not be enough to hold the camera securely. However, since it's fitted with filter threads, you should be able to screw a short extension tube onto the end of it and use that for more stability if it turns out you need it.