Telescope brands, priced from their own pages

Printed telescope prices, verified against each brand's page

Ordered by the lowest price each brand prints for an astronomical telescope on its own store. Three of the eight brands here publish no US dollar price at all, and each is listed with the reason rather than with an estimate.

The questions that choose between instruments

1. Best telescopes for beginners Almost every list of beginner telescopes is a list of somebody's commission rates, so this one starts with a duller question: what does each brand actually print, and how much glass does that money put in front of you.
2. Telescope A telescope is a light bucket with a magnifier on the back, and almost every disappointment with one comes from buying the magnifier instead of the bucket.
3. Smart telescope A smart telescope points itself, stacks exposures and sends a picture to a phone, and it is the fastest growing corner of this shelf.
4. Dobsonian telescope A dobsonian is a newtonian reflector sitting on a simple box that swivels and tips, and that plain mount is the reason the design gives more aperture per dollar than anything else on this shelf.
5. Refracting telescope A refractor is the shape everyone draws when asked to draw a telescope: a lens at the front, an eyepiece at the back, a sealed tube in between.
6. Binoculars Binoculars are the instrument most experienced observers tell beginners to buy first, and they are also the instrument this index cannot price, which is worth saying plainly at the top.
7. Compact binoculars A compact pair of binoculars is a deliberate trade: you lose light to gain the ability to carry them without thinking about it.
8. Best binoculars for bird watching Bird watching asks something specific of a pair of binoculars, and it is not magnification.
9. Spotting scope A spotting scope is a small telescope built for daylight and for carrying: a single tube, a tripod, an eyepiece that zooms, and an image the right way up.
10. Eclipse glasses Eclipse glasses are the cheapest thing on this shelf and the only one that can blind somebody, so this page is about how to buy a safe pair rather than a cheap one.
11. Solar eclipse glasses Solar eclipse glasses do one job: cut the sun by about a hundred thousand times so a human eye can look at it directly.
12. Collimation Collimation is lining up a reflecting telescope's mirrors so that the light they gather arrives at a single point.

By category

• Beginner telescopes 3 brands with priced instruments and verified figures
• Dobsonian telescopes 3 brands with priced instruments and verified figures
• Smart telescopes 3 brands with priced instruments and verified figures
• Solar viewing 4 brands with priced instruments and verified figures