BBCnews is carrying this story about a guy who used an 8" reflector and a webcam to take some pretty decent photos of the ISS.

When I was a kid I had one of those classic 3.5" refractor telescopes. As I recall it was $55 from Sears (in 1978 no small sum), a classic style you pointed one end at a star and looked through the other end.

I could never use it to look at stars because:

• In the summer, when it was warm enough to stay out, giant man-eating mosquitos the size of my head could be heard discussing the best way to completely drain the small pink thing in the middle of the yard.
• In the winter, it was too much of a b*tch manipulating the telescope with mittens on. Mom would also yell at me to come inside most of the time.
• There was only one telescope, which meant instant battle-to-the-death competition with my brother. It's hard to look through a telescope when you're in a wrestling match.
• It's quite a bit harder than it looks to get the thing pointed at anything interesting. A star through a telescope is still pretty much just a bright light.

So instead I used it to track airplanes. I'd scan the fall and spring sky for contrails all the time, and when I spotted one I'd snatch the scope out, follow the contrail up, then see what was making it. Most of the time it was some boring Delta flight or another, but I did also see a B-52, a Quantas jet, and what had to be either a Russian or British airliner (four jet engines mounted on the tail). So I did have fun with it after all.

We used to live so close to DC you didn't get much of a night sky. In all honesty we haven't had time to see what the sky looks like out here. Maybe we'll get another telescope some day.