Astro Hint #1 >> Fingerless Gloves
Ever try to handle your expensive Tele Vue eyepiece while wearing gloves, or even worse, mittens! Not a lot of fun is it? Solution -- get yourself a pair of fingerless gloves. I found these gloves at a local fly-fishing shop. They are made of a tight polyester fabric so they stay warm even when wet. They also have a mitten "flap" to cover your fingers when you're not handling equipment.
Astro Hint #2 >> Battery Box
There's one thing that modern goto 'scopes require --
electrical power! Easy to come by if you're within 20 feet or so of
your home. Not so easy to find if you're at a remote site. Here's my
solution, a 55 AH deep cycle battery. This beauty will power a goto
mount, dew heater, astro-camera, and a few other items straight through
the night. In order to distribute the power amongst all of these
devices I added four 12 volt power sockets to the top of the case. The
unit is centrally switched and fused with a LED voltage indicator.
Astro Hint #3 >> Clear Sky Clock
Until the "cloud filter" is invented, weather will always be a factor in this hobby. Fortunately another amateur astronomer, Attilla Danko, created a service that makes the weather easier to deal with -- the Clear Sky Clock! Remarkably accurate within a 24 hour window (down to the hour sometimes) the clocks not only show whether the sky will be clear, it also indicates transparency and seeing (atmospheric stability). Go here to find a clock for your location: Clear Sky Clock Home