Most backyard astronomers end up with more than one telescope. I'm no different--at this point, I have six different scopes.
This is my workhorse, a TeleVue TV-102 refractor. It has a 4-inch (102mm) aperture and an 880mm focal length. I bought it primarily for planetary observation, but its pinpoint stars and great contrast makes it really nice for the brighter deep-space objects, and it is a fantastic performer when it comes to splitting double stars. It is mounted on an Orion Sky View Pro mount, which provides rock-solid stability but is still light enough to be easily moved with the scope attached.
My largest scope (no photo yet) is an Orion XT-10 Classic, a 10" Netwonian reflector. It shows wondrous views of globular clusters, and picks out faint galaxies with ease. I use it primarily when observing from our club sites, where I can set it up in one place and observe all night.
This is my grab-and-go scope, a TeleVue Oracle 3 "apo" refractor. It has a 3-inch (76mm) aperture and a 560mm focal length. It's really optimized for wide-field scanning, but for its size, it also does a superb job on the planets. Its small size, light weight, and negligible cool-down time make it perfect for quick looks, solar observing, and travel. It is normally mounted on an Orion Sky View Deluxe mount, which provides excellent stability even on windy nights. For travel use, I mount it on a lightweight Bogen tripod with a Telepod head.
Here's my newest toy: A Coronado "Personal Solar Telescope", or PST. The PST includes a built-in H-alpha filter, which lets you see far more than just sunspots: Details like filaments, flares, and prominences are visible in H-alpha, and they change by the hour. This is a truly amazing little scope!
Yet another small refractor! This one is an Orion Short Tube 80, mounted on my Telepod/Bogen travel mount. Although I normally use the Oracle for our vacations and camping trips, I wanted something cheap that I wouldn't be afraid to ship ahead or check as baggage when flying, or to let my kids use at home. This little second-hand ST80 turned out to be just what I was looking for. It works very well as a wide-field scope when used with a quality mirror diagonal, and does double duty as a daytime spotting scope with the 45 degree correct-image prism, as shown here.
This is my first old telescope, an Edmund Scientific 3" reflector. It's really a kid's scope, made very simply, with barely adequate optics. I bought it third-hand, and really cheap, from a co-worker, just to see if I would really be interested in astronomy. I also picked up a copy of Nightwatch, by Terence Dickinson, which actually cost me more than the telescope and eyepieces. The book got me excited, and I got up at 4:00 a.m. the next night to see Jupiter and Saturn. After taking one look at Saturn's rings and Jupiter's fuzzy belts, I was hooked!
Copyright 2004, Neil T. Hobbs