I've honestly no idea but for the body you're probably going to be looking at a Canon 400d or similar I suspect - good value, manual controls and 10.1mp.

You're going to be looking at long lenses and both Canon and Nikon have plenty of choice - I'd contact your local university physics department or their astronomy club for some advice.

You'll also need a decent tripod and possibly a lens warmer to keep condensation off your lens during exposures… and actually a telescope might not be a bad idea. You may also need a star tracker if you're on long exposures unless you deliberately want star trail effects, which will probably wear off quickly if it's stunning images of nebulae you're after.

There is choice in every area you mention and all you'll get will be personal choices and opinions as we are not professional equipment reviewers here - I like Gitzo carbon fibre tripods due to their combination of sturdiness and light weight.

That's as much advice as I can give you - it sounds like a really interesting project so good luck, I'm sure you'll get some amazing shots.

A telescope, with a mount for a camera.

See

You have two issues here.

1) most camera lenses are too short for exploring the heavens.
2) The long camera lenses cost over $10,000 US

Better plan is to buy a good telescope and get a camera attachment for it. Then just about any DSLR camera will do, although there are some good reasons to buy a Nikon D3 or Canon 1Ds Mark III (this is the one case where "Live View" is usable), neither of which are in your current budget … Look to the Nikon or Canon entry level DSLR's like the Nikon D40x or Canon 400D

I have had success using a 3MP Nikon Coolpix 990 on my Celestron 114mm Newtonian mirror telescope (910mm focal length). I can shoot the moon and get excellent detail of its craters during its early and late phases

You'll need a massive telescope and camera mount; which means a camera that can be mounted to the telescope as well. No normal lens will let you see a planet or nebula up close. Like I said, you'll need a large telescope for this. As an example, I used an11.5" refractor telescope to view Saturn. I could see the planet fine, but still. Here is a link to the telescope I used:

As I mentioned, you'll need a good camera and one that can be mounted to a telescope. I once tried this with a Canon film camera, and a local photography business said it could not be done. That was around a year ago, so maybe things have changed.

Hope this helps.

Yeah, you really need a telescope. In addition to the good answers above, here are some more reference sites:

Orion Telescopes have a great site. Check out for photo accessories to go with telescopes. You will find a couple of "universal adapters" of interest.

There is also a book about astrophotography that might be a good idea for you.

Also, from any page, click on the link for "Learning Center" near the top of the page. Enter "photography" in the search box and you'll find 22 articles that will help you.

Sky & Telescope Magazine also has a section on astrophotography available on-line at: