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ApertureBuy the right telescope, not the biggest one

Guide · Updated 23 August 2026

Seestar, Dwarf or a real telescope?

For the first time, a question that is not about money: at €450–750 you can buy either a smart telescope that photographs the sky by itself, or a 200 mm Dobsonian that shows it to your eye. These are not two levels of the same thing. They are two activities, and this page tries to tell you which one is yours before the box decides.

The short answer

  • What you want is the image: to keep it, share it, see nebulae in colour from a city balcony. Buy the smart telescope. Seestar S30 Pro (€749) or Dwarf 3 (€529) — they do this better, more simply and more cheaply than any other form of astrophotography.
  • What you want is to see: Saturn and its ring, with your own eyes, light that left an hour and a quarter ago. Buy the telescope with an eyepiece. A smart telescope shows nothing to the eye; it has no eyepiece and cannot take one.
  • You do not know: take the eyepiece telescope, cheaper, and a pair of binoculars. The smart telescope can be bought a year later if the sky has taken hold; the reverse, often, is not bought.
  • For a child under twelve: the eyepiece. They already have a screen.

Honest rule: a smart telescope is a camera driven from a phone. Everything good this page says about it is true — and nothing it shows has passed through your eye.

The advisor — the photography question is the third

What each one shows

At the eyepiece, the Orion Nebula in a 150 mm under a suburban sky is this — a grey shape, a brighter core, four stars in the middle. It is computed, not prettified, and it is genuinely moving for reasons that have nothing to do with colour.

Recognisable
Detailed
Orion at the eyepiece, 150 mm and 200 mm, low power, suburban sky. Grey because the eye does not see colour at these light levels. No eyepiece telescope, at any price, shows it pink.

On a Seestar's screen, the same nebula after ten minutes of stacking is pink and blue, with wisps, from the same balcony, under the same sky. That is not cheating: it is what a camera accumulates and the eye does not. But it is a picture of the nebula, produced by software, that you look at on a phone. Many people find it magnificent. Some find it empty. It matters to know which you are before paying.

On the planets and the Moon the relationship reverses. A smart telescope of 30–50 mm aperture shows Saturn as a small ball with a ring, Jupiter as a disc with two blurred belts — less than a 130 mm Newtonian with an eyepiece, for twice the price. If the planets are what draw you, the smart telescope is the wrong buy.

Recognisable
Detailed
Jupiter in 50 mm — a Seestar S50's aperture — and in 150 mm, at the eyepiece. The smart telescope does no better than the left circle on planets; its software does not create the detail 50 mm do not gather.

The models, August 2026

  • ZWO Seestar S30 Pro, €749: 30 mm, wide field, mosaic mode, the most polished software. The one French retailers stock in place of the discontinued S50.
  • ZWO Seestar S30, ~€450: the same, simpler. The best price-to-pleasure ratio in the category for a first purchase.
  • DwarfLab Dwarf 3, €529: smaller still, two lenses, a good app, very portable. Same physical limits.
  • Vaonis Hestia, ~€190: a holder for your phone plus an optic; a well-made toy, not a telescope.
  • Above €1 500 (Vespera, Unistellar, Celestron Origin): the same idea with more aperture and more software. Not a first purchase.

None of these is named by this site's advisor: it reasons in instrument families, and the smart telescope is a family with its strengths and limits, not a brand. The prices above were read at one retailer on 23 August 2026; check before buying.

The 'smart telescope' family, with products and dated prices

What the comparison sites do not say

  • You still need sky. A smart telescope works wonders against light pollution, not against clouds, nor against a balcony facing a wall. Check what you can see of the sky before buying either.
  • Battery and cold. Three to six hours in summer, less in January — and January is when Orion is there.
  • The pleasure decays differently. At the eyepiece the hundredth Saturn is as good as the first, because it is the air that changes. On screen the hundredth Orion photo looks like the tenth, and many smart telescopes stop there — unless you genuinely enjoy processing images.
  • Resale. A used 200 mm Dobsonian is worth 70 % of its price in five years. A 2026 smart telescope will be worth what a 2026 phone is worth.
  • Both together is how many households end up after two years. Few start with both.

What next

If you arrived here hesitating, the question to ask is not 'which is better' but 'what do I want to hold in my hand at the end of the evening: an image, or a memory'. Both are good answers. They do not buy the same thing.

The advisor, with your sky and your use

The general guide: which telescope to buy

Questions people ask

Can you look through a Seestar or a Dwarf?
No. There is no eyepiece and none can be fitted. The image is on the phone's screen, produced by the camera and the stacking software.
Does a smart telescope show the planets?
Saturn and Jupiter, yes, but small and with little detail: 30–50 mm of aperture gather little light and detail. A 130 mm Newtonian with an eyepiece, at half the price, does better on the planets and the Moon.
Seestar S30 or S30 Pro?
The S30 is enough to discover the hobby, at ~€450. The S30 Pro (€749) adds a larger sensor, a wider field and a mosaic mode. If you do not yet know whether this hobby is for you, the S30.
Seestar S30 or Dwarf 3?
Very close in results. The Seestar has the more mature app and the better distribution in Europe; the Dwarf 3 is more compact and a little cheaper. Both are good first smart telescopes.
Does a smart telescope work in a city?
That is its best argument: stacking and filters largely compensate for light pollution on nebulae and galaxies. It still needs a patch of clear sky and cloudless nights.

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