Telescopes: Guides & Recommendations

How to Choose a Telescope

The incredible variety of telescopes presents a real challenge for first-time buyers. Here's a no-nonsense primer to an astronomical rite of passage.

Hobby Killer Illustration

Telescopes: Guides & Recommendations

Hobby Killers: What Telescopes Not to Buy

Here’s how to avoid buying an expensive doorstop.

Telescope in a store

Choosing Your Astronomy Equipment

How to Choose Your First Telescope

Here's a quick guide to the essential features that you should look for when buying your first telescope.

telescopes big and small

Telescopes: Guides & Recommendations

What to Know Before Buying a Telescope

Looking through a telescope introduces you to a whole new world of unexpected wonders. But telescopes come in a huge range of sizes and shapes. Here's a detailed, printable guide to the essential features that every good scope needs to have.

Orion SkyScanner and StarBlast reflectors

Telescopes: Guides & Recommendations

SkyScanner 100 vs. 4.5-inch StarBlast

How does the little $100 scope stack up against its venerable bigger brother?

Readying your new telescope

Telescopes: Guides & Recommendations

The Joy of Small Instruments

No photograph can compare with the experience of viewing Saturn directly — something that's possible with even the smallest telescopes.

Astroscan, StarBlast, XT4.5

Telescopes: Guides & Recommendations

Three Great, Small Reflectors

Orion Telescopes & Binoculars's XT4.5 and StarBlast 4.5 and Edmund Scientific's Astroscan set the standard of excellence for small, inexpensive, easy-to-use telescopes.

Telescopes: Guides & Recommendations

Travel Scopes

It's tough to reconcile all the different constraints placed on a telescope for the airplane-traveling stargazer.

Choosing Your Astronomy Equipment

Best Starter Telescopes

In the December 2005 issue of Sky & Telescope, Gary Seronik reviewed a collection of telescopes costing less than $200. It's quite likely that if we were to conduct the same survey today, we would still pick the same 5 as our top scopes.

Galileoscope

Telescopes: Guides & Recommendations

The Amazing $20 Telescope

Sky & Telescope has reviewed innumerable telescopes, and only a handful of the ones that we've tried and liked cost less than $200. Now we're going to recommend a telescope that's selling for $20, and your response is going to be "you're kidding, right?" No, we're not!

Cheap scope

Telescopes: Guides & Recommendations

Cheap Enough for a Cheap Scope?

What value would you put on a cheap scope like this?

Telescopes: Guides & Recommendations

Portaball Reborn

Mag 1 Instruments, maker of the Portaball Telescope, is alive and well under a new owner.

Refractor

Choosing Your Astronomy Equipment

Top 10 Telescope Questions & Answers on How to Use a Telescope

Here are common questions about telescopes culled from an expert’s mailbag.

Scope in a travel case

Choosing Your Astronomy Equipment

Take-Along Telescopes

Want a telescope to bring on your next vacation? Here are some things to consider when looking for a travel scope.

Eyepieces

Choosing Your Astronomy Equipment

Optical Aberrations at the Telescope — And How to Avoid Them

Optical aberrations limit the performance of an eyepiece. Here are seven common problems, with solutions where applicable.

Magnifying Lens

Choosing Your Astronomy Equipment

Common Telescope Magnification Myths

Answers to some of the most common misconceptions about telescope magnification.