7x50 binoculars -- This is the general, all-purpose binocular for star gazing, bird watching, girl watching, watching horse races, football games, etc, etc. I don't go out, even for a casual evening stroll, without my 7x50s. They are the first instrument I use whenever I look at something.
12x80 binoculars -- These are mounted on a tripod simply because they are too big and too heavy to hold steady. They come outside with me at the outset of all my sessions. They can reach much "deeper" than the 7x50s and still have a wide enough field of view to make hunting faint fuzzies an easy process. I use 12x80s for serious scanning. Comets Yakutake and Hale-Bopp appeared best in this instrument. Incidentally, I bought this instrument used from a reputable dealer, and it is probably one of the best deals I have ever made.
60mm refractor on an alt-azimuth wooden tripod. This 700mm f/12 scope is battered, scarred, and came with only one eyepiece (10mmH) for its old-fashioned 1-inch eyepiece holder but I won't complain because it was a freebie. The field of view is of course quite narrow but the detail is very sharp. Equipped with a new Reflex II "red-dot" sight, this instrument is a little jewel that provides superb 70x views of the lunar landscape.
70mm refractor on an alt-azimuth mount -- This is a very good "department store" telescope. It started life as a "Go To" telescope but two harsh, New England winters terminally warped its plastic gears and rendered it useless as a "Go To." It must now be operated manually (not a problem after removal of the "Go To" apparatus). Its optics are rather good, so I use it often for lunar and planet gazing, to search for faint fuzzies, and to split double-stars on less than optimum nights. If a star splits in this scope it will split easily in any other small telescope. This scope is lots of fun to use, very simple, light, and mobile. On poor-seeing nights, when serious viewing is not in the offing, I usually bring it out at the outset. I have since modified it by changing both the finderscope and the diagonal to those giving correct images. It is thus much easier to go back and forth between instruments when telescopes and binoculars all give correct images. It renders 28x at low power.
80mm wide-field refractor on an alt-azimuth tripod -- Also known as a "rich-field" refractor, this is an easy instrument to use for serious searches because it not only presents a much wider field than most telescopes but it also shows a correct image in both its finder and telescope views. For this reason it accurately replicates binocular views as well as the pages of a star atlas -- making it a joy to search for celestial objects while working back and forth with diverse instruments. It is very light, very mobile and very easy to swing and point. Large open clusters and nebulae (like M8, Lagoon) are simply awesome in this instrument. It renders 16x at low power.
150mm Dobson reflector -- This simple, "light-bucket" telescope with its rudimentary alt-azimuth mount is very easy to use and move about. Its aperture is quite adequate for deep-sky fuzzies and it holds up well to the increased magnification of a Barlow lens on clear, dark nights. As with most serious telescopes, its image is reversed in all aspects but this is immaterial when looking at galaxies and planetary nebulae. It does however make object location a bit slow and somewhat tricky. My best-ever view of a faint fuzzy was a stunning image of Lyra's Ring Nebula (M57) one clear, dark night. Not only did it appear emerald green (impossible, according to some pundits) but I swear it was three-dimensional. I don't often drag out this big telescope except to specifically examine one object; and even then, only on the best of nights. It renders 49x at low power.
127mm Maksutov alt-azimuth mounted -- This is a lot of telescope for the money and at less than 20 pounds (total weight for scope and mount) it is extremely portable and a delight to use. I have no interest in astro-photography so I could avoid the much heavier German equatorial mount usually associated with this instrument. It came with a correct-image diagonal and a correct-image finder- scope so it is also well-suited as is for terrestrial use. This type of telescope can be used for just about any function so it probably is the nearest thing to an all-purpose telescope. It is my "big one," bought with the idea that bigger is better and that it would therefore become my work-horse; but this has not turned out to be so. I find myself still using the other scopes as much as I use this one. They are, in essence, a stable of cherished, well-suited work-horses. It renders 62x at low power.