beginners advice

I am looking to gear up for astrophotography. I have a Canon EOS 10S 35mm camera, a Sony DSC 71 digital and a Sony digital camcorder with a nightswitch function.Also a Meade LPI with a Meade LX90 scope and a Tak FS 102 soon.

Is there a general consensus about gear? I have been following the posts for a while and it would seem a ToUcam is great for Planets (unmodified or modified?) but not so sure if there is a medium cost all round CCD for planets and deep sky.

There is the Sac 7 and 8 and the Atik series of modified ToUcams.

Any suggestions about what gear to get? A ToUcam and a Sac 7 or Atik?

A camera adapter to use the 35mm on eyepiece projection?I have a large range of Naglers, Panoptics and Plossls.Be nice to put them to work.

Thanks,

Greg.

Greg,
I've been using a ToUCam for planets for about a year, and I am also looking into something for deep sky. I considered the SAC cameras but unfortunately their software doesn't work with Windows 98 and I'd have to buy a new laptop to be able to use them. (To be specific, SAC told me the software works inconsistently on Windows 98 and uses an Active X driver no longer supported by Microsoft, so I could end up with a camera I couldn't use.)

So now I'm looking into the Atik cameras, which can work with Windows 98. The SAC electrically cooled cameras would probably do better than the air cooled Atik, but that's not an option for me.

My impression is that although a $150 webcam can take cutting edge planet photos, it appears to take a few thousand dollars for a camera (usually an SBIG) to do spectacular deep sky. I thought I'd start with a low end camera and see what I can do with it.

-Joe