Guide · Updated 23 August 2026
Which telescope should a beginner buy?
There is no best telescope. There is the one you will still carry outside in March, under your sky, on your budget. This page gives the short answer first, then the three things the box does not say, then the detail by budget and by situation. Every number here is computed; every opinion is labelled as one.
The short answer
- €300–450 and some room: a 150 mm Dobsonian (150/1200). The most light per euro ever put in a box, on a base that just works. It is the answer the beginners' forums give week after week, and it is right.
- €200–250 or no room: a 130 mm tabletop Newtonian (the 'Heritage' type). Same family, smaller, lives in a cupboard, sits on a garden table.
- Not sure yet, or under €150: 10×50 binoculars. They show the Moon, the clusters, Andromeda, Jupiter's moons, and teach you the sky — which no telescope does at that price.
- A city balcony and mostly the Moon and planets: a 90–127 mm Maksutov on an alt-azimuth mount. Compact, nothing to adjust, sharp on planets.
- What you want is photographs: that is not a telescope in the sense of this page. See the section on smart telescopes.
If your budget is under €150, buy the binoculars, not the €99 telescope. This is not snobbery: at that price the mount shakes more than the planet moves, and the mount is what makes people give up.
Three things the box does not say
1. Aperture decides everything; magnification decides nothing. The diameter of the tube — 70 mm, 130 mm, 150 mm — sets how much light gets in and how much detail is possible. Magnification only spreads that light out: the more you magnify, the dimmer and softer the image. '525×' on a 60 mm tube is not an arithmetic lie; it is a physical one. Beyond roughly twice the diameter in millimetres there is nothing more to see.
2. The mount matters as much as the tube. A 130 mm Newtonian on a small equatorial mount (EQ1, EQ2) is a good tube on a tripod that shakes, with motions most owners never learn. The same tube on a Dobsonian base is a different experience. For visual beginners, alt-azimuth and Dobsonian almost always win.
3. Your sky is often the real limit. Under a city sky a 250 mm shows less of a galaxy than a 130 mm in the countryside. The planets and the Moon do not care; nebulae and galaxies do. Before buying diameter, look at what sky you have — this site's simulator accounts for it, which no other French-language tool does.
By budget
Under €150. 10×50 binoculars (€60–120) and a planisphere or an app. The €99 supermarket refractors — 60 or 70 mm on a photo tripod — show the Moon properly and almost nothing else properly. If you are given one, use it on the Moon; do not buy one.
€150–250. A 130 mm tabletop Newtonian (130/650). This is the first real telescope: clusters resolved into stars, Jupiter's belts, Saturn's ring clearly detached, Andromeda as a pale oval. It sits on a table or a wall and fits in a cupboard. A 70/700 alt-azimuth refractor is the honest alternative if you mostly want the Moon and planets and never want to adjust anything.
€250–450. The 150/1200 Dobsonian. Most beginners' ceiling should sit here, and that is good news: this instrument shows the Cassini division, the Hercules cluster as an ant-hill of stars, dozens of galaxies under a good sky. It is 1.2 m long and weighs about fifteen kilos; check you have somewhere to keep it and that you will carry it out.
€450–800. A 200/1200 Dobsonian if your sky is decent and your back is sound; a 127 mm Maksutov on a go-to mount if you are in town on a balcony. Above that you are no longer buying a telescope, you are buying a mount for photography — a different hobby with a different budget.
What this site's advisor does that this list cannot: compute a spending ceiling from your sky, your home, your car and who will be looking, before showing you a single product. That ceiling often lands below your budget. That is the point.
The three hobby killers
Opinion, not physics — but an opinion shared by more or less everyone who has ever helped a beginner.
- The 60–70 mm refractor sold as '525×' or '675×' with three eyepieces and a plastic Barlow. The tube is not the problem; the tripod, the eyepieces and the finder are. It is the telescope that gets sold in February.
- The 114 or 130 mm Newtonian on a light equatorial mount (EQ1, EQ2). Good optics, bad experience: a mount to learn before seeing anything, and one that shakes in the slightest breeze. The same aperture on a Dobsonian base costs the same and works.
- The €50–90 'children's telescope', a plastic toy with blurry optics. The child will be disappointed once and not come back. An eight-year-old uses a 130 mm tabletop Newtonian perfectly well — with an adult — and binoculars alone.
The number to remember: the maximum useful magnification is about twice the diameter in millimetres. 60 mm → 120×. Anything printed above that on the box is a sales argument, not a capability.
For a child
The question is not the child's age but who will set the instrument up. Under ten, that is you — so choose something you will want to carry out: the 130 mm tabletop Newtonian is the right compromise, and it grows with the child. Between ten and fourteen, 10×50 binoculars they can take out alone beat a telescope they cannot set up alone. The 'children's telescopes' in Christmas catalogues are to be avoided at any age.
First night, with any instrument: the Moon, at a quarter rather than full. The shadows along the terminator are the one thing in the sky that looks like the photographs, and it is the right first surprise.
In a city, on a balcony
A city sky removes the nebulae and galaxies, not the Moon or the planets. A balcony adds a constraint: a compact instrument, stable on a small tripod, set up in two minutes. The 90–127 mm Maksutov on an alt-azimuth mount (go-to or not) is made for this; so is an 80–90 mm refractor. A 150 mm Dobsonian on a balcony is possible but awkward, and it will not see what it was built for.
What you will see from a Bortle 8 balcony with a 127 mm Mak: the Moon in detail, Saturn and its ring, Jupiter with its moons and belts, Mars as a small disc at opposition, double stars, a few bright clusters. That is a lot. It is not Orion in colour.
What about 'smart' telescopes?
Seestar, Dwarf, Vaonis: a small camera on an automatic mount, driven from a phone, that stacks exposures and produces a colour image of a nebula in a few minutes. It is real, it is impressive, and it is not the same activity. There is no eyepiece: you are not looking at the sky, you are looking at a screen that photographs it. For the planets and the Moon, a 130 mm telescope with an eyepiece shows more.
If what you want is the image — to share it, to keep it — it is a good buy at €450–750, and simpler than any other form of astrophotography. If what you want is to see, with your own eyes, photons that left before there were people, this is not it. Many households end up with both; few start with both.
Second-hand?
A good share of good first telescopes are bought second-hand, because a good share of good first telescopes are sold after one winter. A used 150 or 200 mm Dobsonian is often the best deal on the market. Prefer the classifieds on astronomy forums and clubs: sellers there know what they are selling. On general sites, check that the counterweights, eyepieces and finder are present, that the mirror is not pitted, and be wary of the dusty 'never used'.
What next
For the first month, buy nothing else. No Barlow, no filter, no laser collimator. Take the instrument out ten times; on the eleventh night you will know what you are missing, and it will probably be a decent 8–10 mm eyepiece and a chair.
Questions people ask
- Which telescope should a beginner buy for €200?
- A 130 mm tabletop Newtonian (130/650), or 10×50 binoculars if you are still unsure. Not a 70 mm refractor on a light tripod, and not a Newtonian on an EQ1 equatorial mount.
- Which telescope for seeing the planets?
- Anything from 100 mm up shows Saturn's ring and Jupiter's belts; from 150 mm, the Cassini division in steady air. In a city a 90–127 mm Maksutov is the best choice: the planets do not care about light pollution.
- Refractor or reflector (Newtonian) to start?
- For the same money the Newtonian gives two to three times the aperture, so more light and detail. The refractor wins on simplicity and on a balcony. Under €400 the Dobsonian (a Newtonian on a simple base) is the most frequent answer and the right one.
- Is the 675× on the box true?
- Arithmetically yes, physically no. The maximum useful magnification is about twice the diameter in millimetres: 60 mm → 120×. Beyond that the image is dim and blurred.
- Will I see the colours of nebulae?
- No. The human eye barely sees colour at these light levels; nebulae and galaxies appear grey, sometimes faintly green for Orion. The colour images are long exposures. The Moon, the planets and double stars, on the other hand, are coloured.
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