There is a distinct advantage of using a compact camera for astrophotography - cost. Many people these days have a compact digital camera, equivilient to the 35mm type, which can be purchased with reasonable quality and features from approximately £80 upwards. There are quite a range of camera's with differing specificiations, for example, the Canon Powershot series sporting the traditional compact '35mm' body with 3x optical zoom, all the way up to the latest Powershot SX30IS with DSLR-like capabilities and a 35x optical zoom. Using a camera that you would usually take on holiday, for astrophotography, helps to give it different 'lease of life' for a camera that is usually employed for general snapshots.

However, you should realise the capabilities of the camera and the limits of what you are going to be able to take. Typically, with a DSLR, you have full control over the camera's features and they are a lot more flexible, where you can attach a variety of lenses to the camera body. The compact would typically have none of these features, though there a number of the more recent models (such of the Canon Ixus 130) that have a lot of manual controls available. If you are prepared to accept that you aren't going to be able to take shots of the Horsehead Nebula in full glorious colour, using an off-the-shelf camera can give you that first taster in astrophotography.

Because the quality and number of features of digital camera's have improved substantially recently, it is possible to take images of the Moon through a telescope with a reasonable level of quality, even using a camera phone. Though the 'auto' setting can be used, it is helpful to have some additional manual settings available which does increase the chances of taking decent shots of the sky.

It is entirely possible to capture shots of our nearest galaxy, nebulae and solar system objects such as the planets using a compact camera - not to the same degree as photos you see in magazines, but enough to be pleasing and achievable on a modest budget. To set some expectations, you can capture shots of galaxies and nebulae, which will appear as small 'blobs' on the photo. It is even possible to reveal some colour in the object - but you won't be able to take shots of swirling gas clouds made famous by the hubble space telescope or by professional photographers in magazines such as Astronomy Now and Sky at Night Magazine.

In the rest of the website, I'll be referring to the Canon Powershot series of digital camera's, I have owned two 'S' series (the S2IS and the SX20IS) for the past four years and because of the availablility of the 'CHDK' (Canon Hackers Development Kit) for both of these cameras. CHDK extends the camera's features to near-DSLR like abilities. It is a free application, is temporarily loaded into the camera's memory but is only available for certain Powershot, Ixus and 'G' series camera's. These are typically camera's that use the 'DIGIC II/III/IV' series of camera CPU's.

By describing in a number of 'how to' pages, I hope I can offer the reader some useful tips on getting some use from a simple point-and-shoot camera.

The image to the right was taken on the 20th of September 2010, showing Jupiter at the bottom with its four moons - from left to right: Europa, Io, Callisto and Ganymede. The middle star is 20 Psc and the star at the top is Uranus. The shot was taken with a Canon SX20IS, f5.7, exposure time 1.6 sec, ISO 1600.