Best Telescope Buyer’s Guides & Reviews for All Needs & Budgets

Welcome to our telescope buyers guides, fully updated for 2021.

Choosing a new or replacement telescope is one of the hardest purchasing decisions we make as astronomers, which is why we at Love the Night Sky put so much effort into helping make the decision easier.

Whatever you need to help make your purchasing decision, you’ll find it on this page. Use the navigation below to get to what you need.

Table Of Contents
  1. Our Pick of the Current Best Telescopes
  2. Telescope Buyer’s Guides
  3. Individual Telescope Reviews

We’ve created reviews of telescopes for all needs, looking in depth at dozens of individual models along the way. Choose from the list below to discover our view of the scopes hitting the right notes for backyard astronomers.

Our Pick of the Current Best Telescopes

Our best telescope reviews highlight a selection of models that fit your needs. Each model has a short review on the page, weighing up the pros and cons, and there’s a link to a more comprehensive review too.

Best Telescopes of 2021

This is our roundup of the best telescopes of this year. We’ve reviewed 16 models, for beginners to professionals, to come up with our favorites.

Best Telescopes to See Planets

Many of us enjoy the thrill of seeing the Moon and bright planets. The right telescope for this job will kick start your astronomy adventures.

Best Telescopes for Deep Space Objects

If your passion is ‘faint fuzzies’, i.e. galaxies and nebulae, then you need a special kind of telescope. This is our pick of the best available.

Best Telescopes for Kids

Children are fascinated by astronomy from an early age and there’s no better way to keep them engaged than with a suitable telescope.

Best Telescopes for The Money

For many of us, cost is a big factor in which scope we buy. Happily, there are some superb telescopes out there for buyers on a budget.

Best Telescopes for Astrophotography

Many of us want to progress to astrophotography, but that’s a whole new ball game. We’ve selected some stunning scopes to get you started.

Best Astronomy Binoculars

Binoculars are a wonderful starting point for astronomy, especially if you don’t want to commit larger sums of money to the hobby just yet.

Telescope Buyer’s Guides

Choosing a telescope, especially for the first time, is not an easy thing to do. There’s a near-overwhelming array of specifications and no one telescope is good at everything – there is always compromise.

To help you cut through all the noise and help figure out the right telescope model for you, we’ve put together a number of guides that you’ll find useful when shopping for a new telescope.

What’s The Best Telescope for You?

This is our most frequently asked questions, so we’ve put together an easy to use spreadsheet that will help you answer it based on your needs.

How Much Does a Good Telescope Cost?

This is a popular question, especially amongst new astronomers. You might be surprised at how much aperture you can afford.

How Do Telescopes Work?

Understanding how each of the different telescope types work might help you decide which is the most suitable for you.

Telescope Setup

Once you have a telescope, there are a few steps you’ll need to get it working well. Our simple guides will get you started.

Beginner’s Guide to Backyard Astronomy

When you have your telescope home and you’re trying to find your first objects, use our Beginner’s Guide to Backyard Astronomy for help.

Individual Telescope Reviews

We’ve reviewed several telescope models in great detail, awarding them scores for ease of use, optical quality, and mount quality, plus an overall score out of five. You can read the criteria we use for scoring our telescope reviews here.

The list below shows all the full reviews we have available today, with the overall score for the model given in brackets. Click the model name to read the full review.