In an ideal world we would all have specialist stores for what we need at our local high street or mall. Unfortunately, in today’s world of the aggregated conglomerate this is unlikely to happen! The most common place people see telescopes for sale are in toy shops and department stores. Unless you are really lucky, these are likely to have cheap and possibly plastic optics, bright and garish optics who’s main selling point will be an amazingly high level of magnification. Stay well clear of these – they will be very frustrating to use and in my opinion, could put you off astronomy for life!
One of the key decisions is to choose your brands. In the beginners market, it is best to stay away from the mass-market toy store brands and look for those from major manufacturers such as Celestron, Orion or Meade amongst others. All three of these offer a range of scopes from small reflectors up to larger refractors and catadioptrics such as the Schmidt-Cassegrain design ranging from less than $100 to well over $3000. This will cover the needs of anyone new to astronomy for many years.
But where to buy! In the Internet age, there are many online retailers that are taking the place of the specialist store of times gone by. A large number of online stores now offer their services through Amazon.com’s telescope section and their marketplace so the range of both telescopes, accessories and books is wide. Seller ratings and information are offered for all items not stocked by Amazon themselves.
You should now have all the information you need to make an informed choice. We have put together our own recommendations at different budget levels for the three major telescope types in the following pages.
- Recommended refractor telescopes
- Recommended reflector telescopes
- Recommended catadioptric telescopes
Most importantly – have fun and enjoy what could be a lifelong and fascinating hobby!
Previous: Telescope Accessories
