As the weather gets warmer and diaries fill with camping trips and rural staycations, summer nights can offer the perfect time to embark on a little stargazing.
Choosing the perfect telescope can be overwhelming, regardless of your astronomy experience. A quick web search will tell you to consider the scope’s focal length, aperture, eyepiece and more - which can quickly dampen the excitement of purchasing a new piece of kit.
If you’re completely new to stargazing, a simple telescope for beginners is perfect - this will give you a closer look at the night sky without the price tag. This also means that if you decide astronomy isn’t for you - no problem! You won’t be left with an expensive box collecting dust in your wardrobe.
That said, there are also plenty of impressive high-end telescopes out there for those who have been studying the stars a little longer. This guide features the best stargazing telescopes for beginners and experts alike, helping all enthusiasts reach for the stars.
Refractor vs reflector telescopes - which is best?
Before making your purchase, it’s essential to have a basic understanding of the two different types of telescope and how they work. At a basic level, all scopes on the market can be labelled as refractors or reflectors.
Refractor telescopes use specialised lenses to gather and focus light into an image, displaying a magnified sky view. In contrast, reflector telescopes use curved mirrors to reflect light onto the eyepiece.
There are pros and cons to both options. Refractors often give brighter and clearer images to users, allowing for sharper views of stars and planets. These are also lighter in weight and require less maintenance.
In comparison, reflectors collect more light than their counterparts which makes them better for viewing deep-sky objects like galaxies. These telescopes also tend to be easier on the wallet.
Making the right choice can be difficult, so we’ve handpicked some of the very best telescopes below to help with your decision.
See our favourites below
Eaconn telescope
For space-obsessed kids and hobbyist adults, this Eaconn refractor telescope is great for looking up at the heavens at night and birdwatching in the day, giving it 24-hour appeal. Expect crisp images with coated glass optics and zoom in on details with the help of two eyepieces which offer magnification from 30x to 66x.
Buy now £129.99, Amazon
CELESTRON Travelscope 80 22030-CGL Refractor Telescope
With a quick set-up time, you'll be gazing upwards in next to no time. Celestron's telescope comes with an alt-azimuth mount for slow motion control so your view will stay smooth and steady throughout - even when tracking speeding pieces of space rock. It comes with a carry backpack, two eyepieces for greater magnification, and a smartphone adapter to take snaps of the meteor-strewn skies.
Buy now £139.00, Currys
Vaonis Vespera ll Smart Telescope
Can't escape London's light pollution in time for the shower? No matter; telescope-camera combination Vaonis Vespera II to the rescue. Considered the ultimate portable observation station, the smart telescope-camera combination works brilliantly in almost any light setting. It calibrates to your phone’s GPS, tracking the celestial body on the app and capturing it in up to 24MP HD images to share with the world.
The Vaonis Vespera weighs less than 5kg and is another eyeless scope - once you’ve made your viewing selections, it will find and photograph them for you. These images can then be recorded to share on social media or with other astronomers.
Buy now £1395.00, Clifton Cameras
Bresser SpaceExplorer
Built for beginners, the Bresser SpaceExplorer refractor telescope comes with a mount, tripod, and multiple accessories to fuel your fascination with the night skies. It boasts a 900mm focal length which works well for observing the moon, planets, and several deep-sky objects.
If a digital telescope isn’t your cup of tea, then you will appreciate the equatorial EQ3 mount on the SpaceExplorer. Though this is a little more complicated than an azimuthal mount, it provides a much more efficient self-guided experience. Use this to manually move the telescope, searching for and following objects at your own pace. A total of three different eyepieces come with this scope, too - as well as a filter to reduce glare when observing the moon.
This telescope comes with a mount, tripod, and multiple accessories to kickstart your new hobby. You'll also get three eyepieces for various degrees of zoom and a filter to cut glare bouncing off the moon.
Buy now £244.99, TrekkInn
Unistellar eVscope 2
If you like the look of the eQuinox featured in this article, you’re sure to be a fan of Unistellar’s latest model. Both beginners and experts will love the eVscope 2 - it takes less than 5 minutes to set up and even works well in light-polluted environments.
This telescope is fantastic if you want all the tech of a digital scope while still having the option to use an eyepiece. Unistellar partnered with Nikon here to create a stunning digital eyepiece that uses a micro OLED screen - and while it’s not the same as your classic viewpoint, we would argue that it’s even better.
The telescope automatically recognizes objects by comparing its field of view with the Unistellar database. From there, the eVscope will provide information on your observations - use the app to learn about different cosmic objects and share your findings with Unistellar’s active community of over 7,000 users.
Buy now £3999.00, Unistellar Optics
Celestron Firstscope 76mm Reflector Telescope, Moon by Robert Reeves Edition
Robert Reeves first captured the lunar surface in 1959, and it's one of these images that wraps around this sleek reflector telescope. Made for beginners, the Dobsonian mount makes it compact and lightweight, so it’s great for travel or moving around the room to the optimum cosmos-peeking spot. It's a great entry-level scope - especially at this price.
Buy now £59.00, Amazon
Unistellar eQuinox
Throwing a meteor-spotting party? Let the whole squad in on the action without huddling over an eyepiece. The eQuinox doesn’t even have one; instead, up to 10 people can connect to the Unistellar app to group watch streaming images of stars, asteroids, and whatever else is up there in crisp, clear colour. A hardworking image processor works to cut light pollution.
This scope is powered entirely by the Unistellar app, meaning you need to have access to a smartphone or tablet to view the images it produces. The app receives these every few seconds so you can view objects in real time. You will also have access to the incredible Unistellar Network here, meaning you can share your observations within the community and receive guidance from professional astronomers and other space fanatics.
Buy now £2199.00, Amazon
EMARTH Telescope for Kids
It may be billed as a telescope for children, but beginners of any age will fare well with this starter device. See lunar craters and passing comets clearly through the telescope's fully coated optical glass and switch between a pair of eye-pieces for greater magnification - this comes with two 1.25 -inch eyepieces (K25mm & K10mm) to help you enjoy magnification from 14.4 and 36x. The set also includes a 5X24 Finder Scope to help locate objects faster. The adjustable tripod also packs neatly into a carry case for easy portability, giving you even more reason to include it in your next camping pack list. A great buy for casual stargazing.
Buy now £49.69, Amazon
Meade 8” LX90 ACF Telescope
A step up from the Orion SkyScanner, the LX90 is great if you find yourself sitting a little in-between experience levels. If you’ve outgrown your basic scope but aren’t quite ready to invest in an advanced astronomy kit, the Meade telescope featured here could be exactly what you’re looking for.
We’ll start with the tech specs - this is an 8” aperture scope with an f/10 focal ratio. It’s best for viewing brighter deep-sky objects, though it is a pretty good all-rounder. We’ve featured the 8” here, but the LX90 series comes in three different sizes - if you’re looking to spend a little more, we’d recommend the 12” scope.
This telescope can be easily set onto its dual-fork mount and heavy-duty tripod for support while you view. You will also receive an AudioStar handheld control to help position the telescope to point at any of the 30,000 astronomical objects within its database. This really is a complete intermediate stargazing set.
Buy now £3340.00, Astroshop
