Afocal photography with a "Point & Shoot" camera
After my failed attempt to use a Canon point and shoot camera in prime focus, I redirected my efforts to the afocal method. This method uses a camera with a lens behind an eyepiece.
The advantages:
No need to alter (and possibly ruin) a camera. The camera can still be used for normal photography
More flexibility on the image size. By using different eyepieces, Barlow lenses, etc you have more choices on the magnification and area photographed.
MUCH higher resolutions are possible than with a webcam
Much wider range of exposures possible
The disadvantages:
The light passes through two set of lenses - the eyepiece and the camera's lens which degrades the image.
I can't take pictures of the Moon while in the house using Remote Desktop
It's harder to change settings on the camera than changing them on a computer
It's harder to get the focus right - you are looking at a small LCD screen instead of a computer monitor.
It's harder to see what the camera is seeing by looking at the camera's LCD than a computer monitor. (I can run the video to the LCD into a TV, which is quite nice and doesn't have a delay like I had with a web cam connected via USB).
Equipment
A Canon A550 point & shoot camera
A Canon A610 point & shoot camera
A Celestron CPC 1100 telescope
Results
My first successful picture was a photo of the Moon. I used a focal reducer to make the scope work at f6.3 with a 2X Barlow. I used a 32mm eyepiece, and zoomed the camera in enough to avoid vignetting. I had the camera set at ISO 200 and let the camera set the exposure.
The software allows images up to 64 seconds. Here is my first try of something outside of our solar system. It is M42, the Orion Nebula. It is about 1600 light years away (it takes light that long to reach us. We are effectively seeing it as it was 1600 years ago). I took the photo at full resolution, but cut the size down to about 1/4 of the original.
I didn't have noise reduction turned on, which would have helped. Also, by overexposing it, the stars look so large that they the ones in the Trapezium actually merge.