It is often said (and rightfully so) that your first telescope should be a pair of binoculars. And your second pair of binoculars should be big binoculars on a hands-free binocular mount. It is amazing how much you can see (and how beautiful it is) at a dark-sky location with 16 x 70 binoculars mounted on an Orion Monster Parallelogram Binocular Mount & Tripod, for example.
And then there’s the realm of binocular telescopes, such as a 6, 10, or 16″ Reverse Binocular Telescope from JMI. As famed astrophotographer Tony Hallas says in a letter in the July 2007 issue of Sky & Telescope, “Daphne and I have observed…many…deep-sky objects many times over the years using conventional telescopes, including very big ones. Neither of us ever wants to go back to monocular observing. Looking with both eyes through twin scopes with fast optical systems enables the brain to absorb so much more information—it’s utterly breathtaking.”