Telescopes are an essential observing tool for astronomy enthusiasts.
As a beginner of telescopes, how to choose a telescope that suits your needs and budget?
Once you are determined to buy a telescope, face a variety of equipment and equipment, and a variety of professional terms, do you feel helpless?
Below I will help you pick out the popular and beginner telescopes on the market.
Top 5 Telescopes For Beginners 2020
Last update on 2021-09-23 at 23:00 / Affiliate links / Images from Amazon Product Advertising API
1.Meade 203002 Instruments LightBridge Mini 114 Telescope
If you’re looking for the biggest bang for the buck in an entry-level astronomy telescope, you should take a close look at a Dobsonian reflector telescope.
Meade makes an excellent line of Dobsonian mounted Newtonian reflectors, known as the LightBridge series.
The Dobsonian design offers great value in an affordable aperture. That means you get superior light-gathering ability at a bargain price, so you can see the deep sky with great detail and brightness.
This is perfect for the back-yard astronomy enthusiast who wants to see faint objects such as distant galaxies, nebulas, and star clusters… without spending a lot of money.
The Meade LightBridge Dobsonian reflector telescopes are easy to use, and beginners will have no difficulty setting up a LightBridge and finding prominent objects in the night sky.
Meade offers four models of varying aperture and size in the LightBridge series, ranging from 8 inches up to a deluxe 16-inch aperture design. And they are also lightweight and reasonably portable.
2.Celestron 31042 AstroMaster 114 EQ Reflector Telescope
Celestron astromaster 114EQ reflector telescope is one of the unique telescopes designed for both beginners and experienced astronomers.
This product comes with a variety of exciting features to make your experience worthwhile.
With its expanded aperture and wide eyepieces, it enhances the image quality giving you the beautiful sight, which will surely astound you.
Celestron astromaster 114EQ reflector telescope makes celestial viewing just perfect for its users. It is quite unlikely that this product will disappoint its users. This reflector telescope is extraordinary, with its high quality and a great number of features.
It’s fully coated high-quality lens produces clear and bright images of the moon, stars, and planets. This reflector telescope has a big sized 114mm mirror, which gives its user a wide zoom in the world of astronomy.
This reflector telescope has a 140mm aperture, which works in gaining the maximum light to make an object look bright. The Focal length of the astromaster 114 EQ is 1000mm.
This reflective telescope comes with a set of extra features compared with other telescopes of the same model. It is very easy to install this telescope without using any confusing tools. Once you open the compact box, within some minutes, you will be able to use this telescope.
Astromater 114EQ reflector telescope comes with a lastingly mounted StarPointer, often found in Celestron products. The software which comes along with this reflector telescope is planetarium software with a database of 10,000 objects accompanied by enhanced images.
This reflector telescope is made up of good quality, strong material, with long-lasting design.
It comes with an aluminum tripod giving you a flexible yet stable platform that is made of 1.25-inch steel tube legs. Reflectors equatorial mount is pretty stable, provided with easy-slow motion controls on the axis.
This reflective telescope is designed in such a way that it allows you to locate objects accurately and helps you in tracking specific objects in the sky, saving your time and giving you awesome results.
This reflector telescope not only provides good results but is also durable. You can use it for years and years. This product is something that has all the qualities of satisfying its user.
Take it to your favorite location and experience the wonderful moon, stars, planets, star clusters, nebulas, and the ring around Saturn. The software provided will help you a lot in tracking and locating heavenly bodies that you have never seen before.
3.Celestron 31045 AstroMaster 130 EQ Reflector Telescope
Are you a beginner and looking for a telescope that serves a dual purpose? If yes, then Celestron AstroMaster 130EQ is a perfect choice.
It has 130mm of the aperture, which gives a great view of the moon, stars clusters, large galaxies, and much more! This 130mm mirror is yet the largest in the series.
Its general features include easy and quick set up of the product with a permanently mounted eyepiece.
It is ideal for terrestrial and astronomical use with its erect image optics. It gives clear and crisp images.
4.Celestron 114LCM Computerized Telescope
The 114SLCM by Celestronis a great beginner-intermediate scope for someone who wants the cool features without the high price!
If you’re looking for a computerized telescope that can take pictures of what you find, aligns itself, syncs up to your computer, tells you about the objects you’re looking at, and is accurate enough to view the vast majority of stuff people care about.
Pros:
- Object database, accurate and cool design
Astrophotography, durable
Lightweight and all-around the scope
Cons:
- Small comparative object database
In conclusion, the Celestron NexStar 114SCM is an awesome all-around beginner-intermediate telescope for anyone looking for a computerized, feature-packed reflector.
How to Choose Your First Telescope
More astronomy enthusiasts are planning to buy telescopes.
However, the telescope is a precision optical instrument, and it cannot be sloppy when purchased.
For beginners to buy telescopes, I have a few suggestions here:
Don’t buy a too cheap telescope
Many cheap telescopes will try to impress you with their magnification ratings.
Do not be fooled; high magnification with cheap optics often comes at the expense of brightness. You may be able to zoom way in and find a galaxy or planet, but it will appear very blurry and dim.
If you have $100 to $200 to spend, you can get a very good beginner telescope.
The best beginner telescope in this price range would be a 6″ to 10″ Dobsonian reflector coupled with a good eyepiece.
If you are looking for the best beginner telescope in the $200-$5000 price range, your options are varied.
Optics are generally very good in this price range. You may consider a 12″ Dobsonian reflector in this price range.
Do Not Buy On Lens Alone
Never buy a telescope by the magnification. Instead, compare the aperture of the lens or mirror.
There are very few telescopes that give more than 50X magnification per inch of aperture.
Aperture Is Queen
Everything is size related within the telescope. With all things equal, the bigger the size, the better the telescope.
Optical Quality Is King
Size is relative inside the tube. A smaller scope that contains an excellent set of optical lenses can see a lot more than a large telescope with sub-standard optical lenses.
A 3.5″ Questar telescope, for instance, has more oomph than the 21″ monster. Quality should never be passed over for size because neither are readily interchangeable.
Instead of magnification, the buyer of a beginner telescope should instead focus on the quality of optics.
Look for glass lenses, and they will deliver a brighter, sharper image.
Also, good optics will make the advertised magnification of a telescope more meaningful, as the chances are better than you will have a better image at high magnification levels.
Darkness Looming
Remember that you are looking at stars, and the perfect place to see them is in a remote area like a field and not on the rooftop of your apartment building in Manhattan.
The lights from the city can easily take away from the clarity of the astronomical bodies you want to look at.
This has a lot to do with choosing the right telescope because you do not want to buy a telescope that is not portable, so look for something compact yet powerful with its components.
The smaller the telescope, the more it will get used. If you can move it around and easily pack it away, that means you can easily pull it out.
Getting your children interested in astronomy means they need to be able to maneuver the telescope themselves.
A telescope under 3″ will be brought out nearly every clear night, whereas a telescope made of steel, iron, and glass will rarely be brought out because it would be a major chore to load up and transport.
Mounting A Good Offense
It is hard to believe, but the mount is often more important than the scope itself.
Without amount that is solid and steady, you cannot even begin to focus the telescope correctly, let alone take astral photography or time elapsed photography.
A basic tripod is all that you need. They are solid, sturdy, and last a long time. Any good mount will cost a couple of hundred dollars, which puts into perspective the presumes quality of those telescopes that come with the amount.
Other Tips For Beginners
For telescope beginners, it’s important they read the operational manual that is provided so they can understand how to focus the lenses of the telescope for the particular use.
They also need to know how to adjust the tripod, if this is an accessory sold with the telescope.
If not, the beginner needs to learn how to balance the handheld telescope for the best and most accurate lens capture.
This way, you will be able to orient yourself with constellations and other features in the sky and see some interesting details of the moon and possibly the planets.