Don’t, however, expect stellar (heh, heh) image quality this is truly a hobbyist telescope, good for spotting birds, ships, planets, and lunar features, but you won’t be able to see nearly as much fine detail as with more expensive models. If you find yourself in this position, you could do worse than selecting whichever is the biggest-aperture telescope from this range that falls into your budget. These same people will also appreciate the simple how-to video and computer-based star and moon atlases that come with the telescope. Best for BeginnersĪll in all, these are all pretty decent starter telescopes for someone who doesn’t really know what to expect and therefore wants something that’s fairly capable but not too hard to use. DSLR camera attachments are also supposedly available, but telescopes in this range aren’t really stable or precise enough to make this worthwhile. You can use a smartphone to take photos through the eyepiece, which works fairly well if you buy a bracket to hold it in place. None of them are especially well-built, unfortunately it’s difficult to adjust your telescope precisely, while a finger carelessly bumping into the tube will probably move your target out of view. The alt-az mounts on each are also not the same, with the 50 mm version having only basic support on a rudimentary tripod, while its more expensive cousins have steadier bases that offer fine-tuning over elevation, bearing, or both.

A 2x Barlow lens further allows you to tweak the size of your image to frame an object perfectly, though it won’t really help you to push the limits at maximum zoom. This is achieved by swapping out the included eyepieces, of which each model has either two or three tailored to their optics, giving a decent range of viewing options. Though this telescope is of the refractive type, it includes a 90º prism so that objects appear the right way around, meaning that it’s much easier to navigate around the night sky or a landscape.įor each telescope, the prospective buyer has a range of viewing powers from which they can choose – from about 10x to over 100x. This means that the low-f/ models generally offer lower effective magnifications and show greater distortion at any given level of zoom.

Different StrokesĪside from the wide variety of aperture sizes available, you’ll find that the focal ratios of the various options differ greatly.

The differences between the various options are pretty significant, though. Recognizing this, Meade produces a whole range of telescopes based on the same basic design. With telescopes, as with much in life, what’s good enough for one person just won’t be sufficient for another.

Gskyer telescope 600x90mm review