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Best Kid-Friendly Telescopes I’d Recommend

Ratings & recommendations last updated by Zane Landers on

I usually recommend a tabletop Dobsonian type of telescope for children, seconded by a refractor type of telescope. But your unique requirements might call for a different model.

Reasons for and against choosing a tabletop dobsonian:

Celestron Firstscope Tabletop Dobsonian Telescope in a backyard
Skip down to my tabletop dobsonian recommendations

Reasons for and against choosing a refractor:

Meade Infinity 70AZ Refractor Telescope
  • Kids aren’t as picky about things like chromatic aberration, so a short refractor, which I wouldn’t recommend for an adult, will be fine for a child.
  • Refractors also allow children to view land objects during the day, while tabletop Dobsonians (a type of reflector telescope) produce upside-down images for terrestrial viewing, making them less suitable.
  • Refractors are more capable of withstanding rough handling by kids than reflectors, and unlike reflectors, they don't need an optics alignment procedure called collimation before use.
Skip down to my refractor recommendations

If you are curious about how I picked which made it to my elite kids’ best telescope list, let me first discuss the differentiators one by one below.

Age: Why I'd say this guide for children aged 5 to 11?

A young child under 5 is simply not going to be able to grasp the complicated concepts behind viewing anything besides the Moon and I don't foresee them using the telescope at all on their own. In such cases, adult guidance would be required from time to time especially since telescopes require a bit of knowledge and maintenance (storage, cleaning, collimation e.t.c.). Furthermore, there’s a high risk of them being unable to understand the danger of viewing the Sun with a telescope and blinding themselves.

If you have an older child or intend to always use the telescope along with your child, it may be worth reading our regular guide for purchasing telescopes. Over the age of ten or eleven, I think you might be better off picking a full-fledged, adult-sized telescope for your child to use.

Budget: I recommend at least $150, but don't go overboard

For a real starter-quality telescope, I advise spending at least $150, though there are some kid-friendly, passable telescopes under that price. If you buy them a cheap junk telescope, you risk killing their enthusiasm for astronomy and permanently turning them away from it.

But, let’s face it. Are we sure kids have that long attention span that we expect them to go gaga over it for a long period of time? That’s next to impossible. Kids’ interests shift as quickly and as often as they switch channels from Disney Channel to Nickelodeon. So, it would be impractical to buy them something expensive that we expect to be in the storage room in a few weeks or even days. Unless you, an adult, can use it yourself, I guess you'd prefer to be called frugal rather than spend on something that won’t be used after the first few tries.

Kids would likely enjoy any gadget as long as they can carry them around, or at least they can move it from one place to another by themselves.

But still, you cannot expect every kid to have the same level of interest and attention. Mostly, the simpler the setup, the more kids would likely give it more time. We should also ensure that the telescope’s features can be appreciated by kids so that they’ll likely enjoy it for a long period of time.

Telescopes are not for everybody. How to know whether your kids like telescopes?

Test the waters first. It’s easy to gauge children’s interests if they talk about it all the time, if they ask questions, or when they directly ask you to buy them one.

That being said, before you buy your kids a telescope, make sure they are really interested. Don’t just assume that because you love the hobby, others do as well. This costly assumption will just potentially add junk to your attic. Trust me! No matter how other people tell you that fruits don’t fall far from the tree, they sometimes do!

2024 August Update: Orion Telescopes & Binoculars's retail website went offline on July 31st and their storefronts are all shut down from mid-July. We're in the process of removing Orion's and Meade's (Orion owns Meade Telescopes) telescopes from our recommendations and rank lists.

All Recommendable Tabletop Dobsonian Reflector Telescopes For Kids

With 76mm (3") Aperture

With a 3" aperture, your child can expect to see a fair amount of detail on the Moon, Saturn’s rings, Saturn’s moon Titan, Jupiter’s moons, Venus’ phases, and maybe some detail on Mars and Jupiter if they're lucky, but that’s about it as far as the Solar System goes. You’ll be able to identify Uranus and Neptune as star-like points and nothing more. Deep-sky-wise, the Pleiades and a few open clusters are nice, and you can see the Orion Nebula. But that’s really the limit.
Typical Price: $65-$79
Celestron FirstScope 76 or Moon Version
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Celestron FirstScope is something I have highly mixed feelings about. The astronomy community usually considers FirstScope and its variants to be “toy telescopes.” But it’s one of the only few working telescopes for sale under $100 in the US that doesn’t have a shaky mount. If something happens to it, it's not too expensive of a loss—which might be good if you have particularly young children.

It has many, many issues befalling it, which shouldn’t be a surprise considering the price. For one, the primary mirror is spherical and thus it fails to deliver sharp images at “high” (really over maybe 40x) magnification. The eyepieces are… horrific. The 20mm Huygens (15x) works, but that’s about all I have to say about it. The 4mm Ramsden is literally useless and tends to get stuck in the focuser. But, still, its views of the Moon, planets, and a few select bright deep-sky objects will blow kids away if they're patient. That being said, the FirstScope will be crushed by a serious instrument of almost any aperture, even one slightly bigger at 100mm.

If you really must get a telescope for your child for around $70, the FirstScope or one of its 76mm clones will do it. But if you really want to give them a satisfactory experience, I’d suggest doubling or even tripling your budget.

With 100mm (4") Aperture

4” aperture means it can show a lot more detail on the Moon and planets and a fair amount of deep-sky objects.
Zhumell Z100
Typical Price: $159
Zhumell Z100 Tabletop Dobsonian
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It’s true that the Zhumell Z100 is the best you can get for your kid if your budget is limited to $150. There’s a reason I recommend it not just for kids but indeed for all ages at this price point. But at the same time, $150 is not a great budget for a telescope and so, as you can guess, there are some quality compromises. 

The eyepieces, as I've verified, are rubbish Kellners, and the “low”-power 17mm eyepiece provides a bit too much magnification to be a good low-power eyepiece. I believe a 20mm or 25mm eyepiece would’ve been far more desirable. Also keep in mind that if the scope suffers a lot of bumps and jars during shipping or even just on a rough trip in the car, you will never be able to get sharp images because re-aligning the primary mirror (known as collimation) is impossible with this scope. That being said, the Zhumell Z100 is still better than anything else at its price and certainly beats the Celestron FirstScope by a mile. These are one of the lowest priced telescopes I've found on the market with quality optics.

With 114mm (4.5") Aperture

4.5” aperture allows one to see quite a handful of nebulae, galaxies, and globular clusters, the latter of which can even begin to be resolved into grainy stellar masses. In the Solar System, a 114mm reflector shows the phases of Mercury and Venus, Mars’ ice cap and a few dark markings at opposition, Jupiter’s cloud belts and Great Red Spot, the 4 Galilean moons circling Jupiter, Saturn’s rings and the division within them, Titan and a few other Saturnian moons, and Uranus and Neptune as tiny teal- and azure-colored disks.
Zhumell Z114 tabletop dobsonian telescope
Typical Price: $180-$240
Zhumell Z114 Tabletop Dobsonian
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The Z114 is basically a scaled-up Z100, and its views are just a bit bigger, sharper, and brighter compared to the Z100, without much of a difference in portability. It is simply unmatched in value and convenience and is thus my #1 recommendation for a child.

The Zhumell Z114 fits in a backpack, meaning it’s even perfect for travel and camping trips if you have access to a bench or picnic table to use it on. While it may be difficult for a child to do, an adult can help collimate the mirrors if they get bumped or fall out of alignment during transport or use. The Z114 has a wealth of objects to show and its wide field of view means it excels at wide open star clusters as well.

Celestron StarSense Explorer 114mm Tabletop Dobsonian
Typical Price: $295-$350
Celestron StarSense Explorer 114mm Tabletop Dobsonian
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Essentially a Zhumell Z114 with the 'StarSense Explorer' phone dock added to the optical tube, the Celestron StarSense Explorer 114mm Dobsonian includes the same eyepieces as the Z114 and is optically as capable as the Z114. What I don't like is that it is a pricier pick. That being said, it's true that the StarSense Explorer technology is extremely helpful in locating targets in the night sky with the help of your smartphone, especially for tech-savvy children who might be comfortable with using the Celestron's StarSense smartphone app.

With 130mm (5") Aperture

A 5” telescope gives you another 30% gain in light-collecting power over a 4.5” (or 70% over a 4”) and is still extremely portable and easy to set up.
SkyWatcher Heritage 130P tabletop dobsonian
Typical Price: $235-$285
Sky-Watcher Heritage 130p Tabletop Dobsonian
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The Heritage 130P's collapsible tube feature does create the disadvantage of stray light being able to easily enter the tube, which can be (mostly) remedied by creating a foam shroud. However, we believe that the compactness and light weight are more than worth this minor inconvenience.
Zhumell Z130 tabletop dobsonian telescope
Typical Price: $270-$350
Zhumell Z130 Tabletop Dobsonian
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The Z130 is the largest of the Zhumell tabletop Dobsonians, featuring even more aperture than the Zhumell Z114. When compared to the Heritage 130P, the Zhumell Z130 comes with tube rings to turn the optical tube to adjust the position of the eyepiece and a nicer focuser. Also, unlike Heritage 130P, Z130 doesn't need a light shroud due to its closed tube design. The downsides are that, at over 20 pounds, these might be difficult for a kid to move by themselves, and they'd also be hard pressed to find a suitable surface for the scope to rest on. The pricing is also mostly a turn-off when compared to that of the Heritage 130P.
Celestron StarSense Explorer 130mm Tabletop Dobsonian
Typical Price: $350-$450
Celestron StarSense Explorer 130mm Tabletop Dobsonian
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The Celestron StarSense Explorer 130mm Dobsonian has the exact same optical tube as the Zhumell Z130. It also has similar accessories as the Z130. The only difference whatsoever is the inclusion of Celestron’s StarSense Explorer technology, which can help the kid locate objects using a smartphone. However, at the price Celestron is asking, I don't usually recommend it over the Heritage 130P, even for adults.

With 150mm (6") Aperture

The 150mm (6") aperture means it has twice the light-gathering ability of a 4” scope, and 1.5 times the resolution. When Mars is close to Earth, up to a dozen dark markings may be seen on the Martian surface – as opposed to maybe two or three with a 4” or 4.5”. Jupiter’s moons are disks instead of pinpoints; a smaller telescope lacks the resolution to perceive this. Saturn’s cloud belts are visible, as are several moons such as Rhea and Titan. Uranus and Neptune are obviously disks, and Neptune’s moon Triton may be seen. A 6” will also show many galaxies (some even with detail instead of as mere smudges), can begin to resolve some of the bright globular clusters into stars, and many open clusters are visible. The Orion Nebula is truly spectacular on a winter night.
SkyWatcher Heritage 150P tabletop dobsonian
Typical Price: $265-$310
Skywatcher Heritage 150P Tabletop Dobsonian
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If you’re looking for a serious telescope that you (or your child) won’t grow out of, this is it. It’s also made to a higher standard of optical quality, boosting the performance even further. The Heritage 150P does require a table, but as said before, a stable table or other surface is far better than a shaky and wobbly tripod that makes aiming the telescope frustrating. The whole telescope can still be picked up by an older kid with one hand (weighs 23.5 lbs) and fit in a duffel bag or suitcase. The collapsible tube means it can be stored virtually anywhere when not in use.

All Recommendable Refractor Telescopes Below $350 For Kids

Cheap refractor models come with lower-quality accessories, mounts, and overall build, so I can’t confidently recommend any refractor telescopes for kids under $150, even though many options are available.
Celestron StarSense Explorer LT 80AZ Refractor Telescope
Typical Price: $190-$230
Celestron StarSense Explorer LT 80AZ Refractor
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The StarSense Explorer LT 80AZ, though I’m recommending it, is still a mediocre 80mm doublet refractor and is one of the cheapest refractor telescopes that barely (and only partially) passes my filter. As a f/6.5 focal ratio refractor, it will have some chromatic aberration, though not severe. Thanks to being a refractor, the scope doesn’t require collimation like a tabletop dobsonian reflector and can be used for terrestrial viewing thanks to its upright image—in fact, it includes an Amici diagonal, so images aren’t reversed left to right. It’s very easy to aim, thanks to Celestron’s unique StarSense Explorer technology, which uses only a smartphone app and a special phone-mounting adapter to assist us in pointing the telescope at faint deep-sky objects without any additional hardware, alignment, or power.
StarSense Explorer DX 100AZ
Typical Price: $270-$350
Popular Science Celestron StarSense Explorer DX 100AZ Refractor
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The StarSense Explorer DX 100AZ from Celestron’s Popular Science series fixes many of the issues of its smaller cousin, the StarSense LT 80AZ telescope, and it’s one of my favorite grab-and-go telescopes. The Popular Science DX 100AZ is arguably quite inferior to the similarly-priced and larger tabletop dobsonian reflectors available, but the DX 100AZ is a little more kid-friendly with a technology like StarSense Explorer for easy sky navigation, as well as not requiring any collimation (periodic alignment of the optics) as reflectors do. It also has a full-sized tripod. The scope is capable of showing you everything a decent 4” should: Mercury and Venus’ phases, lots of lunar craters and other features, some details on Mars, Jupiter’s bands and Great Red Spot as well as its moons, Saturn’s rings and the division within them (as well as some moons), and Uranus and Neptune as tiny bluish dots. In addition, there are numerous star clusters, galaxies, and nebulae to be seen.

3 thoughts on “Best Kid-Friendly Telescopes I’d Recommend”

  1. Hello. I’m a 12 year old kid who really wants a 8” dobsonian telescope. I chose the Skywatcher classic 200P. Is it a good option?.

    Thank you if you read this.

    Signed off, Krishaang

  2. Hello. I’m a 12 year old kid who really wants a 8” dobsonian telescope. I chose the Skywatcher classic 200P. Is it a good option?.

    Thank you if you read this.

Comments are closed.

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