Do you own astronomical equipment?

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I usually go down to a place near the Bixby Bridge in Big Sur. There's hardly any light pollution there at all. It is somewhat near sea level. The viewing (when it's not cloudy of course) tends to be pretty good.

When I lived in Arizona I had a telescope. I always enjoyed hiking up the mountains and viewing the stars from up there at night. I don't know what happened to it though. I haven't seen it in years.

do you notice any appreciable difference in clarity between your present viewing place, and any higher-altitude places you've used in the past? just curious.

Just jumping in, I have an 8" Zhumell dob and a 4.5" Orion dob. I really haven't used them for awhile, since I've been too busy to drive around and my backyard is light-polluted (local and skyglow) as well as surrounded by trees. My renewed interest in astrophysics and the approaching summer vacation will probably see me out at dark locations quite a bit in a few weeks.

Hopefully not too off topic, what books do you guys like? I got Turn Left at Orion with my 4.5", and bought Star Watch a few days after I got my 8". Both are great, but my guides are limited to those and a couple years of Astronomy Magazine.

6" Orion Starblast (a Dobsonian with a low focal ratio). Don't use it as much as I should though--it's always too cold or cloudy or I have too much work to do. Plus the light pollution in my neighborhood is a bit bad--my house is right across from a street light.

This sort of kind of has to do with the topic of this thread, so I figured I'd ask here:

What do you like to do with your equipment? Is it eye-to-the-eyepiece viewing? Astrophotography? Spectroscopy? Something else entirely?

One of the reasons I'm asking is I'm just curious. The other is there was a conference not too many months ago on remote and robotic observatories. auntblabby was asking about site conditions, light pollution, and altitude. One of the topics that came up at that conference was the idea of putting the equipment somewhere remote, and operating it from a different location. I know that a number of amateurs have gone this route, to the point of setting up roll of roof pier farms where you can locate your telescope. Pier rental includes power, network, weather monitoring, and all the other things you'd want for a remote observatory.

All of which is great if you have a camera on the back, but none of which is helpful if you prefer looking in the eyepiece. So I was just curious what everyone did with their gear.

on ^ subject, i'd prefer the easy viewing way of borrowing time on a professional piece of equipment whose output i could view remotely over a hidef tv set. that way i'd never be in the cold and dark, and i'd never have to travel an hour out of town to a mountaintop to get any decent viewing.

I like getting outside and testing my eyes, equipment, and finding skills. If you want pretty pictures, go to NASA's website. It's also a very topical social experience if you go to a star party. Equipment, objects and science are the basis of most conversations, and little things like eye contact are irrelevant in the dark.

That said, I would love to have an astrophotography scope to play around with imaging and for doing things like satellite tracking, spectroscopy and supernova discovery.