Essential software

When starting stargazing, don't just think hardware  - think software too! And unlike the hardware, you don't need to pay an arm and a leg for a lot of astronomy software  - in fact, most of the really good software is as free as the air you breathe. Top of the list of software you'd need should be planetarium software. This is a package called Cartes du Ciel (Skycharts) which not only maps the sky at your current location but also allows you to remotely control the telescope as well - just click on a target on the screen and the telescope swivels immediately to it! Cartes du Ciel is completely free and available at http://www.ap-i.net/skychart/

And if you fancy a little lunar exploration, a moon atlas would be useful. This is the Virtual Moon Atlas, available free athttp://www.ap-i.net/avl/en/start

If you want to capture video with a CCD imager, you'll need video capture software. This is WxAstroCapture - specifically designed for astronomical use and free from http://arnholm.org/astro/software/wxAstroCapture/

And once you have that video, you'll want to do some image stacking and processing on it to produce high-quality high-resolution images. The industry standard is Registax - another free product and available at http://registax.astronomy.net/