I then moved to eyepiece projection of the moon and planets, followed by piggy back astrophotography. More recently, I have begun deep sky photography. I am still learning the techniques and am not an expert by any means. This refers to attaching a 35mm SRL camera to a tracking system so that stars are not trailed on long exposures. The camera can be piggy-backed on the optical tube of an equatorially mounted telescope or attached directly on an equatorial mount.
Some photographers build their own barn-door tracking system.
Piggy back photography is one of the most forgiving types of astrophotography and can give beautiful pictures of star fields, constellations, and the Milky Way. You should master this technique before attempting prime focus photography of deep sky objects. The mount needs to be roughly aligned with the north pole and track the stars as the earth rotates. Most any motorized equatorial mount should track accurately enough for modest exposures with a short focal length lens. Popular lenses range 50mm to 150mm, and typical exposures are from 10 to 30 minutes.