Best Kid Telescopes Overview
- $75 range: Celestron FirstScope Tabletop Dobsonian – While the FirstScope is admittedly a bit of a letdown for adults in terms of its usefulness and image quality, it’s at least stable, convenient, and easy to use. Its views of the Moon, planets, and a few select bright deep-sky objects will blow kids away if they’re patient, and if something happens to it, it’s not too expensive of a loss—which might be good if you have particularly young children.
- $150 range: Zhumell Z100 Tabletop Dobsonian – The Zhumell Z100 is the lowest priced telescope on the market with quality optics and comes with an easy-to-use and lightweight tabletop Dobsonian mount, some decent eyepieces and a red dot finder for aiming. There’s a reason we recommend it not just for kids but indeed for all ages at this price point. It can also be attached to a photo tripod.
- $225 range: Zhumell Z114 Tabletop Dobsonian – The Z114 is basically a scaled-up Z100, albeit unable to be attached to a tripod and with a properly adjustable primary mirror. The Z114’s views are just a bit bigger, sharper, and brighter compared to the Z100, without much of a difference in portability.
- $300 range: Sky-Watcher Heritage 150P Tabletop Dobsonian – The whole telescope, though with a 6″ aperture, can still be picked up with one hand and fit in a duffel bag or suitcase. The collapsible tube means it can be stored virtually anywhere when not in use.
- $300 range, refractor: Popular Science Celestron StarSense DX 100AZ Refractor – The Popular Science DX 100AZ is arguably quite inferior to the similarly-priced and larger tabletop dobsonian reflectors available, but the Inspire 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.
Recommended Best Kids’ Products Individually Reviewed
1. Best Cheap Kids’ Telescope – Celestron FirstScope or its variants
- Inexpensive
- Tabletop dobsonian mount design
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 near $50 in the US, and it doesn’t have a shaky mount. However, 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 fails to deliver sharp images at “high” (really over maybe 40) magnification.
Second, there’s no finderscope. The extremely low magnification provided by the 20mm eyepiece (15x) allows one to sight along the tube, but it’s not the easiest thing, especially for a child.
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.
You can’t collimate the primary mirror. But you’re limited to such low power anyway that as long as it’s roughly correct, the images will be alright.
Celestron sells an accessory kit for the FirstScope, including some more junky eyepieces and a finderscope, but the finderscope is less effective than sighting down the tube, and the eyepieces are useless.
What is in effect a 15x monocular with relatively poor image quality is something I’d find difficult to recommend to an adult, which is why I typically suggest 50-60mm binoculars to adults with such a tight budget. But a child will have trouble holding binoculars steady, and, of course, they want a telescope, not binoculars.
With this scope, you can expect to see a good 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 you’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 it.
The FirstScope will be crushed by a serious instrument of almost any aperture, even one slightly bigger. If you really must get a telescope for your child for around $60, the FirstScope or one of its clones (Celestron Cometron, Orion FunScope) will do it. But if you really want to give them a satisfactory experience, I’d suggest doubling or even tripling your budget.
2. Best $100 Telescope For Kids – Zhumell Z100 Tabletop Dobsonian
- 4” aperture for around $100
- Can be mounted on a photo tripod
- Usable eyepieces
It’s true that the Zhumell Z100 is the best telescope you can get for your kid if your budget is limited to $150. But at the same time, $150 is not a great budget for a telescope and so there are some quality compromises. For one, the eyepieces are rubbish Kellners, and the “low”-power 17mm provides a bit too much magnification to be a good low-power eyepiece – a 20mm or 25mm would’ve been far more desirable.
Second, the primary mirror cannot be collimated. 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 is impossible.
That being said, the Zhumell Z100 is still better than anything else at its price, and certainly beats the Celestron FirstScope by a mile. The Z100 has almost no competition in its price range except for the similarly featured Orion SkyScanner 100. The Z100 can even be mounted on a medium-duty photo tripod if one lacks a table. And its 4” aperture means it can show a lot of detail on the Moon and planets and a fair amount of deep-sky objects – assuming it’s collimated, of course .
3. Best $225 Telescope For Kids – Zhumell Z114 Tabletop Dobsonian
- Decent eyepieces
- Lightweight
- Decent aperture
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.
But being a reflector, it can’t be used terrestrially, and collimating can be a bit of a pain, especially for a child. However, it is simply unmatched in value and, thus, is still my #1 recommendation in the price range.
The Z114 has a wealth of objects to show. Its wide field means it excels at open star clusters, but its large 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, the Z114 will show 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.
4. Best Lifelong Telescope For Kids – Sky-Watcher Heritage 150P
- 6” aperture shows detail in many targets outside the Solar System
- Easy-to-use tabletop Dobsonian mounting
- Collapsible design is easy to transport
The Heritage 150P’s aperture means it has twice the light-gathering ability of a 4” scope, and 1.5 times the angular resolution. It’s also made to a higher standard of optical quality, boosting the performance even further.
The Heritage 150P does require a table, but 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 with one hand and fit in a duffel bag or suitcase. The collapsible tube means it can be stored virtually anywhere when not in use.
A 6” telescope beats a smaller one in the Solar System in a number of aspects:
- 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.
The Heritage 150P comes with decent 25mm and 10mm Plossl eyepieces for low and medium power, respectively, and a usable 6×30 finder – though a Telrad or Rigel Quickfinder may be preferable, especially for a child.
Drawbacks? Other than needing the occasional tweak to collimation, the Heritage 150P needs a sturdy table, bench, crate or other surface to hold it that can easily be walked around.
5. Best $300 Kids’ Refractor Telescope – Celestron Inspire 100AZ
- Refractor means upright images and no collimation
- No table needed
- Usable for terrestrial observations
- Nice accessories
The DX 100AZ is a 4” f/6.5 doublet refractor. Thus, it will have some chromatic aberration, though not severe. Thanks to being a refractor, the scope doesn’t require collimation like a Newtonian 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.
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.
The Inspire 100AZ’s main drawback is the simplicity of the mount. It’s actually perfectly steady, but it lacks the smoothness of a Dobsonian or the slow motion adjustments of most good alz-azimuth mounts. But considering the scope’s features, I think it’s acceptable.
