I've been interested in astronomy for years and finally got
up the nerve to buy a telescope, a Meade ETX-90 in 2001.
I've been having a blast with it, mostly observing the
planets and the moon because at f/13.8 its focal ratio is
too high for serious deep sky work. That being said, on one
beautifully clear night I was able to observe the Ring
Nebula from my back yard with it.
In order to fill the need for a deep sky capable scope, I
built an 8" f/4 Dobsonian reflector following and adapting
some plans I found on the internet. It's an open tube
design, but not a traditional truss-tube design. It is a
fast scope, and there is some coma, but the views are
certainly worth it. And being an open tube design it
reaches thermal equilibrium quicker.
For Hydrogen Alpha solar observing I've picked up a
Coronado PST and have been really impressed with it. Being
able to see prominences and other non-white light features
is really impressive. It's too bad that I bought it at
about the bottom of the solar cycle, but activity should be
picking up soon and the views will only get better.
My interests, up to this point, have been planetary
observation, double stars, and some solar observation. I've
also played around with some astrophotography, both film
and digital, but haven't done much with it. I've started
using a Meade LPI Lunar and Planetary Imager to take
digital pictures out of all three scopes with some good
results. It's not a cooled CCD, so long exposure stuff is
out, but I'm getting some good results with it.