[Right Wing Professor]

You ought to look into something with a CCD and LCD screen. My wife (bless her heart) gave me a Nikon Coolpix 4500 for Christmas. I simply set it on the picnic table pointing it at the sky, set the exposure for 8 seconds and f3.0, and got a picture of Orion with stars down to mag. 6, right on my laptop (OK, I played a little with the image to boost detection of faint stars). I've been playing with a spotting scope, and can get virtually instant pictures of the Galilean satellites. It's staggering how good even comparatively cheap digital cameras are these days.

[LibWhacker]

It's staggering how good even comparatively cheap digital cameras are these days.

Indeed it is. I saw a picture the other day that was taken with a digital camera, and I couldn't believe how good it was. Not too many years ago, they were overpriced and hardly worth considering.