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Telescopes: Guides & Recommendations
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.
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.
Choosing Your Astronomy Equipment
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.
Telescopes: Guides & Recommendations
SkyScanner 100 vs. 4.5-inch StarBlast
How does the little $100 scope stack up against its venerable bigger brother?
Telescopes: Guides & Recommendations
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.
Telescopes: Guides & Recommendations
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.
Choosing Your Astronomy Equipment
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.
Telescopes: Guides & Recommendations
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!
Telescopes: Guides & Recommendations
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
Top 10 Telescope Questions & Answers on How to Use a Telescope
Here are common questions about telescopes culled from an expert’s mailbag.
Telescopes: Guides & Recommendations
Take-Along Telescopes
Want a telescope to bring on your next vacation? Here are some things to consider when looking for a travel scope.
Choosing Your Astronomy Equipment
Optical Aberrations at the Telescope — And How to Avoid Them
Optical aberrations limit the performance of an eyepiece. Here are seven common problems, with solutions where applicable.
Choosing Your Astronomy Equipment
Common Telescope Magnification Myths
Answers to some of the most common misconceptions about telescope magnification.