The scope those pictures were taken with is about $10,000 plus $7,500 for a mount and a two year wait if you order one. A top of the line CCD (ST-10E) camera is around $10,000 with all the necessary gadgets to make it run. Of course there are other scopes and mounts that take beautiful pictures such as the M51 image posted for less than half of the above. Computer guiding is the key to deep space imaging when photographing longer than 5 minutes and there are several products that can be hooked up to guide scopes that ride piggy back on the main scope which houses the camera. The better CCD cameras have dual purpose duty, both guiding and imaging.

I don't know anything about hookups and application for CCD equipment at this time, I'm still trying to work with film and my scope is old and is all pain staking bent over the eyepiece manual guiding. I don't even have a way to post my limited attempts of astrophotography at this stage. I figure once I get good with film I'll jump into CCD. The software out there is allowing people to actually take a nap while the computer is controlling the scope and camera while imaging there object. Some people never go outside again once the initial setup is performed. But that's to easy, right?

SteveS (learning the hard way)