Which telescope should a beginner buy?

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.
• €200–300 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.

Get the answer for your exact case

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 and a planisphere or an app. 60 or 70 mm refractors at that price show the Moon well. Look at the kit: the usual rule gives them 120 to 140× (twice the aperture in millimetres, an exit pupil of 0.5 mm), and this site does not suggest a kit whose eyepieces reach more than twice that number.

€150–300. 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.

€300–450. 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

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.

For a child: the guide, age by age →

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, 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'.

Buying used: what to check, what to pay →

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.

The advisor: 7 questions, 2 minutes, a ceiling

What a 130/900 shows, concretely →

Every model in this guide

Cheapest first. Each view is the Hercules Cluster through the model, at the same exit pupil, under the same suburban sky.

Questions people ask