Should anyone wonder, I am a proud owner of a Meade ETX-125 Maksutov-Cassegrain telescope and have (too) occasional access to a massive LX200. The AutoStar software is a great teacher of astronomy and enormously helpful in locating celestial objects.
Canon 15x50 binoculars with Optical Image Stabilizer offer brilliant panoramic view of the night sky and also greatly help in locating celestial objects.
My newest helper is Star Walk for iPad interactive astronomy guide from Vito Technology Inc. IMHO it is just amazing. The device is helpful also when using the telescope and is a wonderful companion on those star gazing night walks with only binoculars. iPad is easy to carry along and provides Star Walk with location and orientation data that allows it magically to display information about the part of the night sky iPad is pointed at or currently selected by touching the screen.
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Update Oct 2015: Star Walk 2 has been available for some time. Warmly recommended, it is even better than the excellent first version of Star Walk. Especially helpful is the "see through" mode that uses iPad camera to align the display with the part of the sky viewed. There are many educational add-on packages with wealth of information.
