No cheapie camera adapter, the Tele Vue Prime Focus Camera Adpater is enhanced with anti-reflective blackened threading and also accepts 48mm filters. You'll need your camera's specific T-mount.
For shorter exposures of 5-7 minutes, it is fine to have your telescope in an altazimuth mode. If you wish to make longer exposures, you'll need to have your telescope properly equatorially mounted in order to prevent drifting of the stars in the image. Many altazimuth mounts have an option of an equatorial wedge, which effectively converts an altazimuth mount to an equatorial mount.
Although some brands of camera may also work in aperture-priority autoexposure mode, most cameras will need to be in fully manual exposure mode. Additionally, if there is a switch on the camera which chooses the focus mode, that switch must indicate manual focusing.