Thank you. That was a great episode. I bought 20x80 astronomical binoculars with some of my wedding present money. I love using them, but they are heavy. More often than not, I use my eyes or my 7x35 binoculars that sit readily available on a bookshelf.

I have one of those dinky $15 "telescopes". I don't think I've ever seen anything through it. Someone gave me an inexpensive department store telescope. It took me forever to find Saturn, and by the time I called over the kids, Saturn had drifted out of the field of view. It was very frustrating.

I'll second the comment about astrophotography being within reach. I have taken photos of planets. You need to have a tripod and a way to have longer exposures. I do planet pictures on automatic. When several planets are together in the sky, you can photograph their rearrangement day to day as I did with
http://www.spacew.com/gallery/image003799.html
http://www.spacew.com/gallery/image003828.html

For example, right now, Saturn is hanging out in Leo. You could take pictures over the course of weeks to show how Saturn moves against the background of stars. Oops! You have to be up early in the morning to do that now, but you get the idea.

Paying attention to what's happening in the sky goes a long way.