will the camera lens replace the telescope

What do you mean? Essentially, there is no difference. I can easily mount my Nikon camera body to my 10" telescope.

So, what does that make it when I do that? Is it still a telescope or a camera with a telephoto lens?

well is it possible to mount your telecope body to a camera....tat is by increasing the camera size...

Well, look up astrophotography on the internet. Basically, all you need is a camera that has a detachable lens. You can use a film camera, but everybody is going digital these days.

You will need a T adapter that has one end designed to fit where the camera lens fits and the other end mounts into your telescope. It is by far the cheapest part of the system and costs under $20.

The real expense is in the telescope and the camera! However, with a little work and the right equipment you can turn out photos like Todd Hargis does here:

http://www.pbase.com/todd991/astrophotos

Todd has been doing this for a long time and is very good at it, obviously. I would bet Todd has at least $15,000 invested in equipment, but you can do some remarkable pictures with well under $2,000 in equipment if you know what you are looking for.

I have also taken pictures of the sky just using a camera with its own lens mounted piggyback on a telescope. The telescope only acts as a motorized mount for the camera and keeps the camera pointing at the same section of the sky as the Earth rotates.

When you take pictures of the sky you need a telescope that has a set of motors designed to track objects in the sky. There are two types of tracking. One compensates for the Earth's rotation. The other allows you to follow satellites as they orbit the Earth. The latter requires a laptop to tell the telescope where to point and how fast to drive the motors to keep up with the satellite.

so u have taken pictures of the space using this .....

Only a few and not like Todd's work. At some point I would like to do much more, but I have so many irons in the fire now that it is off the radar screen right now.

If your wondering whether or not camera mounted lenses will ever be powerful enough to reach deep space and get a clear picture, .....never !