Taking good pictures of deep-sky objects requires state-of-the-art equipment as well as high-quality optical components. Take the time to familiarize yourself with the night sky before moving on to more advanced and expensive telescopes.Īstrophotography is known to be a rather expensive hobby, and that’s quite justified. These telescopes cost between 100 and 500 dollars and are very easy to use. Many amateur stargazers started their career with a Dobsonian telescope!Ī good Dobsonian, with an aperture size ranging from 4 to 8 inches (100 to 200 mm), is the perfect telescope for anyone new to the field of stargazing. I strongly advise choosing a telescope powerful enough to show you the moon and the planets, as they are the easiest objects to find in the starry sky. Therefore, avoid buying an expensive and hard-to-use a telescope at first, as it might discourage you and eventually make you lose interest in the hobby. The learning curve can be very steep depending on the path you wish to follow in this hobby.As a beginner, you won’t know how to use it to its full potential.When you are new to stargazing, you don’t necessarily need a high-end telescope that costs thousands of dollars. If you are looking to get into astrophotography, the “William Optics RedCat 51” (700 to 750 dollars) is a very popular choice in the astrophotography community. If you are looking for a good refractor telescope, my personal recommendation would be the “Explore Scientific FirstLight AR127” which costs $700. These telescopes are great for experienced users who wish to pursue the very expensive hobby that is astrophotography but are not necessarily best suited for the occasional users in my opinion. As a result, the price of apochromatic refractors can quickly increase, ranging from 800 to several thousand dollars. Some of them are equipped with up to 5 lenses in total. They use a special type of glass that is much more effective in attenuating chromatic aberrations. Achromatic refractors are often the type of telescope that novices tend to buy and their price range lies between $50 and $450. Unfortunately, these refractors are built with low-quality materials and are not worth the money at all.Ĭhoosing a good refractor largely depends on the quality of the glass installed at the aperture. Nowadays, it is possible to purchase entry-level refractor telescopes at a very affordable price, such as the “Celestron PowerSeeker 50AZ”, priced at just 60 USD. This is because refractors are equipped with glass lenses that are much more expensive to manufacture than the mirrors used in Newtonian telescopes. Refracting telescopes are generally a little pricier than reflecting telescopes. The price tag is about $550, but it comes with many accessories such as high-quality eyepieces, a laser collimator, a moon filter, a Crayford-style dual-speed focuser and a cooling fan. If you are based in the US, the widely acclaimed “Apertura AD8” is probably the best 8-inch Dobsonian you can get. If you are based in Europe, I highly recommend the “Sky-Watcher Classic 200P f/5.9 Dobsonian Telescope” which costs about £300 (€350). Naturally, these telescopes are much more expensive than their original version. There are a few different variations: some have a retractable tube, others are equipped with a motorized mount and some combine both features. The prices I have mentioned above are the average rates for the classic version of the Dobson telescope. The bigger versions of this telescope are a bit more expensive: about $450 for the 8-inch (200 mm) and $615 for the 10-inch (250 mm) version. If you prefer a regular-sized telescope with a larger aperture, the “Classic 6-inch Dobsonian” is a very good option for about 315 dollars. These telescopes are excellent, affordable and easy to use. Regarding the cost of a Dobsonian telescope, the prices start at about 100 dollars for a 4-inch tabletop telescope. Since their optical elements are made of mirrors only, Dobsonians are much cheaper to manufacture, which means that it is possible to acquire a telescope with a wide aperture at a reasonable cost. This type of reflecting telescope offers the best value for money with respect to the aperture size. Dobsonian telescopes are renowned for being the best telescopes for observing the moon and the planets.
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