My everyday cam is a Cannon Powershot sx130. It has 12x optical and 48x digital zoom, the best thing is I can manually control focus, aperture and
shutter speed which helps a lot on night shots. Its not a dlsr but it works fine.
Im also in Lancashire and i feel the same....can only see the brightest stars and id love to see the night sky devoid of any light polution Alas that
probably isnt going to happen any time soon =(