Alveprinsen

Hi guys i have been using an orion g3 osc as a starter camera for getting into deep space imaging. It seems to work ok but i tried shooting m42 the other day and was very dissapointed as the nebula barely would fit in the frame:( 

I have been looking at the canon 1100d as an upgrade (would love a big expensive ccd but funds wont allow) Would i be right in thinking that with a larger chip size i would increase my field of view or is my telescope the limiting factor? I use a celestron c9.25 with focal reducer.

Or is there any other camera you think would be better with a £500 budget. thanks in advance for any comments

DSLR all the way baby, unless you want to fork out 4000 pounds for an equally sized CCD chip.

The idea thing would be to get a modified one... Like one of these JTW Ultimate Deep Cooled Canon cameras... However, they cost like more than twice your budget. But even an un-modded Canon EOS camera will give you great results. They will have more noise than a CCD picture, but they will be a hell of allot larger... And your FOV will in comparison to your current camera be - for the lack of a better term: clinically insane.

I never went the CCD route, and I havent regretted it. I grew out of my unmodded Nikon D3100 DSLR pretty quick though, so I've ordered the camera I mentioned above, only with the 600D instead of the 1100D. But if I were you, I would totally go for that Canon... Upside is, if you've got nimble fingers - you can mod it yourself. There are plenty of DIY tutorials on YouTube and such. If not - you can allways send it in to some modifying service, and get it done at an extra price. Hell, when economy permits, you could even turn it into a Ultimate Deep Cooled one. I know they provide that service...

Anyhow... DSLR baby... all the way. Although you should expect naysayers telling you to stick to those itsy bitsy teeny tiny CCD chips...

Sincerely, Alveprinsen.