
Choosing Your Astronomy Equipment
How to Choose a Telescope
The incredible variety of telescopes presents a real challenge for first-time buyers. Here's a no-nonsense primer to an astronomical rite of passage.

Choosing Your Astronomy Equipment
Hobby Killers: What Telescopes Not to Buy
Here’s how to avoid buying an expensive doorstop.

Cameras: Guides & Recommendations
First Look: Canon's EOS Ra Mirrorless Camera
Canon's new EOS Ra Mirrorless camera for astrohptography promises to make a big splash in the imaging community. Here's a look at some of its features.

Astronomy for Beginners: How to Get Started in Backyard Astronomy
Astronomy doesn't deserve its reputation as a tough, expensive hobby. You just need to begin with the right advice.

Telescopes: Guides & Recommendations
How to Choose Your First Telescope
Here's a quick guide to the essential features that you should look for when buying your first telescope.

Binoculars for Astronomy: Ultimate Guide to Selecting and Buying
Ordinary binoculars are your ideal "first telescope." And they're so versatile that even seasoned stargazers find them indispensable.

Power and Aperture in Binoculars
They come in a wide range of apertures. But for astronomy, large aperture is only part of the story. High magnification is just as important when binoculars are used on a night sky that's not absolutely dark.

Telescopes: Guides & Recommendations
What to Know Before Buying a Telescope
Looking through a telescope introduces you to a whole new world of unexpected wonders. But telescopes come in a huge range of sizes and shapes. Here's a detailed, printable guide to the essential features that every good scope needs to have.

Cameras: Guides & Recommendations
Advanced Imaging Conference 2013 Videos
Watch senior editor Dennis di Cicco's interviews with vendors at the October 2013 Advanced Imaging Conference.

Choosing Your Astronomy Equipment
SkyScanner 100 vs. 4.5-inch StarBlast
How does the little $100 scope stack up against its venerable bigger brother?

Choosing Your Astronomy Equipment
The Joy of Small Instruments
No photograph can compare with the experience of viewing Saturn directly — something that's possible with even the smallest telescopes.

Choosing Your Astronomy Equipment
Three Great, Small Reflectors
Orion Telescopes & Binoculars's XT4.5 and StarBlast 4.5 and Edmund Scientific's Astroscan set the standard of excellence for small, inexpensive, easy-to-use telescopes.

Travel Scopes
It's tough to reconcile all the different constraints placed on a telescope for the airplane-traveling stargazer.

Binoculars: Guides and Recommendations
Binocular Blogs
Binocular stargazing has a peaceful, organic quality that's hard to achieve through a telescope. Here's a list of some blogs the author has written on this subject.

Telescopes: Guides & Recommendations
Best Starter Telescopes
In the December 2005 issue of Sky & Telescope, Gary Seronik reviewed a collection of telescopes costing less than $200. It's quite likely that if we were to conduct the same survey today, we would still pick the same 5 as our top scopes.

Choosing Your Astronomy Equipment
The Amazing $20 Telescope
Sky & Telescope has reviewed innumerable telescopes, and only a handful of the ones that we've tried and liked cost less than $200. Now we're going to recommend a telescope that's selling for $20, and your response is going to be "you're kidding, right?" No, we're not!

Cheap Enough for a Cheap Scope?
What value would you put on a cheap scope like this?

Choosing Your Astronomy Equipment
Portaball Reborn
Mag 1 Instruments, maker of the Portaball Telescope, is alive and well under a new owner.

Choosing Your Astronomy Equipment
Binoculars vs. Starblast, Redux
How do 15x70 binoculars hold up against a genuinely inexpensive telescope?

Binoculars Part III: One Eye Versus Two
Binoculars are qualitatively different from telescopes with identical aperture.