I have been researching the best telescopes for beginners for the past few days to find the perfect model for stargazing and learning astronomy. I read expert reviews from trusted sources like Sky and Telescope, Space com, and Celestron’s own guides, two models consistently stand out as top recommendations:
The Gskyer Telescope is a popular refractor model featuring high-quality optics. It is praised for its ease of use and affordability, making it a strong choice for beginners.
The Celestron 22452 StarSense Explorer LT 114AZ uses smartphone assisted star mapping technology which makes it incredibly beginner-friendly. It has reflector design which offers bright, sharp views of the moon, planets, and even some other sky objects.
I am having trouble deciding which one would suit me best. I am mainly interested in viewing the moon, planets, and bright nebulae. The budget is flexible but need something truly have of best quality and durability.
So which one would you recommend? Any advice or personal experience would be appreciated.
@katherine234 the single best thing you can do is stop immediately and find an astronomy club and join it. Spend time getting your hands on different kinds of scopes. Then you will know what to get. I would personally not recommend either of those.
just my two bobs worth for an absolute beginner the seestar or dwarf as you can learn from their atlas where things are and it gets your head around the sky stars constellations etc and then work your way up to a more challenging set up no matter what you get their will be a learning curve.
Both of those telescopes use Alt-Az mounts, meaning that they will not track objects in the sky. The cell phone adapter will not enable long exposure astroimaging, because the mount will not track automatically. This will limit you to lunar and planetary imgaging.
For a beginner, a dobsonian type of newtonian refelector telescope will enable you to see dimmer objects like Galaxies and nebulae, as you get more aperture per dollar spent.
If you insist on one or the other, get the reflector telescope, as ALL inexpensive refractor telescopes suffer from chromatic abberation.
Later, if you want to do astroimaging, a good solid German Equitorial Mount (GEM) can be purchased to mount a small refractor or reflector telescope. What expert astroimages do is to use and oversized GEM mount with smaller telescopes. Stay away form cheap refractors as the suffer from severe chromatic abberation.
I’m glad you stated you are primarily interested in viewing.
My first question is always to ask what the poster’s interest is.
Reflectors are a good choice for viewing. They fold the light and can get some really deep reach into the more distant objects, meaning for example you can look at the moon with smaller telescopes or the moons craters with the higher magnification reflectors.
Bigger aperture reflectors work best for astronomers interest in solar system objects, Moon, Planets, and with the right Solar Shields the Sun.
When beginning, my interest was with Astrophotography. So I went for Deep Space Objects (DSO) and found the recommendation’s were refractors, triplet (or now Quadruplet) lensing, and small telescopes worked best. I began with an Orion ED80T CF. Extra low Dispersion, 80mm, Triplet lens design, and Carbon Fiber tube construction.
Reasons are ED focuses the light better for the cameras sensor. It doesn’t scatter the light like doublet lenses can.
80mm simply is the aperture size. At the time, the difference was my 80mm was $995.00m or a 100mm at $2500.00. Not being a moneybags, I couldn’t justify the extra 20mm for $1500 more.
Besides, I wasn’t sure I would continue in my AP endeavors.
My first mount was a Go-To type in the hopes it could do the basics needed for my interest. It did, when it wasn’t in the service department getting repaired.
3.5 years later that mount failed for it 3rd and last time, I stopped throwing money at it. The 2 year warranty was gone, and it was junk, expensive junk.
Quit? Or go on? I decided to continue but to learn from my beginners mistakes.
Be careful to not become a telescope Collector. Study what others are doing with a telescope you find that fits your budget and desires. Ask before you buy. Unless you want to be that guy with 15 to 20 telescopes that only uses 1 or 2. I don’t, so in 13 years of this hobby I’ve only had 2 main telescopes. And both the best I could justify to myself for my interest in AP.
