My first telescope was a Meade ETX 105EC Maksutov Cassegrain with a focal length of 1450mm and a focal ratio of f14, mounted on the Meade delux field tripod. As soon as I started imaging (pretty much straight away) I realised that focusing was a bit of a nightmare when using a webcam, so I got myself a Meade electronic focuser for the ETX.
I've now got the use of a Konus 80mm Short Tube Refractor and an ETX 90, that were borrowed from my Dad.
I've now upgraded my setup somewhat. I've got a Vixen VC200L VISAC (Vixen Sixth-Order Aspherical Catadioptric) system. This is a 6kg tube with a 200mm aperture and a focal length of 1800mm giving a focal ratio of f9. The VISAC optical system is basically composed of a concave primary mirror and a convex secondary mirror, with a 3-element field corrector in the focus draw tube.
Along with the Vixen OTA, I've bought a Losmandy GM-8 equatorial mount. This is a wonderful piece of engineering, that certainly looks the business :-)
I have a 300mm SLR lens with a M42 thread on the back, which allows me to put my ToUcams straight onto the back with a Mogg 1.25-T adapter. This camera/lens combination has a field of 40x30 arcsecs. I've also got a 135mm and a 50mm lens too.
My latest acquisition for the webcams is a Mogg 740-M42 adapter. This screws directly into the front of the ToUcam, and has an M42 thread on the other side. It also has a standard tripod mounting hole on the flat bottom, so that it can be attached to most mounts easily, while taking the weight of the lens away from the ToUcam.
I have the Meade eyepiece kit which includes 40, 32, 26, 20, 15, 12.4, 9.7 and 6.4mm eyepieces. I also have a Meade 2x Telenegative Barlow, an Orion 21-7mm zoom eyepiece (I've now sold this), and a Steven Mogg 0.66 focal reducer with a 0.33 extender.
I bought a set of Orion filters, which along with red, green, blue and yellow included a SkyGlow filter and a variable polarising filter. I also have a Sirius NIR filter, and a BC&F solar filter.
I also have a DewBuster heat controller, for keeping dew at bay. I've made myself some heater strips of various lengths and dewshields to fit my various tubes.
For imaging I have 2 webcams, both Philips ToUcam Pros. One modified to SC1 level for long exposures, the other to SC1.5 level (the same long exposure modification but with the addition of the CCD amp-off modification, also it is in a project box with a fan for cooling). I toyed with the idea of modifying the first ToUcam myself, but realised rather quickly that it would be going way beyond my patience threshold. So I ended up buying a modified one from Perseu in Portugal. The SC1.5 was modified by another member of the QCUIAG web group :-) Many thanks to him.
I also have the use of an ATK-1C colour camera. This is basically a ToUcam Pro II (PCVC840k) modified for long exposure, and put in a very nice case with a fan for cooling. One really nice feature of this camer is that the 1.25" nosepiece unscrews to leave a standard T-thread, so my M42 SLR lenses can be screwed straight into it.
I also have a Sony PC110 Handycam (which I haven't really used much yet for astrophotography).
For image capture, I started using my wife's 12" Apple iBook, but now use my gorgeous 15" Apple Powerbook running OSX for planetary, solar and lunar subjects, and an old Fjitsu Lifebook 675 running Windows 2000 Pro for the long exposure stuff. Although that's all changing at the moment (see the software section).
It gets a bit chilly and damp here in the UK in the winter, so I've taken to running the scope from indoors. This way, only one of us has to get cold :-) What it does mean though is that there's always a mess of cables trailing up the garden into the house. I control the scope serially via a Keyspan Serial-USB adapter, and run the camera feed through 2 active USB extenders and a powered hub. Long exposure control is via a standard parallel extension cable.
I'm not quite sure what I'll do if I ever decide to take this little lot out to a proper dark site!