Nikon's D810A is the first full-frame DSLR designed for astrophotography

[MarkS]

Thread Ambush: Is it as simple as that? I could mod my Canon 450D and still use it for normal photography?

No not really.  Autofocus might be slightly (or severely) compromised and you need to get a special filter to remove the IR & UV to give the sensor sensitivity to only the visible spectrum.

[RobertM]

More $ than many CCD cameras.

Carole

Well, if you compare apples and oranges then yes, but you will be hard pressed to get a CCD camera and LRGB filters with a similarly sized sensor for the same money even in the classifieds.

A full frame camera isn't all bonus.  For a start the optics have to be corrected to cover a larger area and that means many more ££.  Just think of the coma that appears on even good lenses with an APS chip and multiply it several fold.  Most lenses won't be totally usable unless stopped down to f5.6 or beyond.

I also think 36 megapixels is too many - how on earth are you going to stack and calibrate fifty of those subs   Would be nice if it could be done in-camera though

Robert