Mounting a DSLR to a cheap telescope

I recently fabricated an adaptor to mount my D70 to a little Tasco Luminova budget telescope. The business end slips into the telescope in place of an eyepiece, and the camera locks on to the other end. Holding focus is difficult with the weight of the camera hanging on the end of the tube, the all-plastic telescope tends to wobble wildly when the camera mirror moves, and the optics aren't great... but it still makes for some interesting images.

IMAGE: Homemade telescope tube mount for Nikon D70, prior to final touch-ups
Homemade telescope tube mount for Nikon D70, prior to final touch-ups

The mount was made from a plastic body cap, an old extension tube, a couple of PVC pipe fittings, and some epoxy and paint.

Below are two images taken of the moon on a relatively clear night. This first one was a "prime focus" image -- just the 800mm element projecting straight onto the camera's sensor.

IMAGE: An image of the moon taken through a cheap telescope lens, focal length 800mm
An image of the moon taken through a cheap telescope lens, focal length 800mm

For the second image, I added the 1.6x Barlow lens that came with the telescope. Hello magnification, goodbye physical stability and image quality!

IMAGE: The surface of the moon, as viewed through a cheapo telescope
Same subject, but this time with a really lousy 1.6x Barlow lens in the mix

Chromatic aberration was a major limiting factor for the resolution I was able to obtain from this setup. Decomposing the image using image-editing software and tossing out the red and blue channels (leaving only the green channel) resulted in about twice the apparent sharpness of the original full-color image. The moon isn't especially colorful anyway, so a full-color image isn't really necessary!

MORE DETAILS TO COME... WHEN I HAVE TIME.