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Ranking All Tabletop Dobsonian Telescopes (76mm to 150mm)
Tabletop Dobsonians in the 4-6” aperture range are ideal for those who are tight on budget or storage space. They also make a superb complement to a larger telescope on those nights when we don’t feel like setting up the bigger one. Some people I know even have three Dobsonians or a combination of multiple telescopes to fulfill their different requirements. I’ve also had the luck to test out almost all tabletop telescopes available in the US in the last few years since I dealt with with 400+ used and new telescopes.
- Planetary Imaging: This requires the largest telescope with tracking you can get your hands on. If equipped with tracking, Dobsonians are also superb planetary imaging telescopes. I recommend you head to our Computerized Telescopes Ranking Page for such scopes.
- Deep Sky Astrophotography: This requires a budget well in excess of $1000 USD and typically involves purchasing a separate optical tube assembly and computerized equatorial mount rather than the mostly-visual-focused all-in-one telescopes.
- If you’re looking for larger aperture telescopes, we have a page dedicated to full sized dobsonians.
2025 June Update: Orion Telescopes, a major astronomy brand, ceased operations permanently on July 2024. Zhumell tabletop Dobsonians, which were once our budget favorites, also are being discontinued. Additionally, high tariffs imposed on China—the country that produces most astronomy products—starting in February 2025, have caused major disruptions, with many of our previously recommended telescopes going out of stock.
Rank Category: 3″ (76mm) Tabletop Dobsonians
The 3” tabletop Dobsonians are all f/4 focal ratio units with spherical mirrors that are unsurprisingly incapable of rendering sharp images. Their inherent wide field of view makes aiming with it easy, provided the eyepieces provided are also up to snuff. But even then, don’t expect high-resolution views. However, if it’s all you can afford, the tabletop Dobsonians still beat having nothing. Performance is roughly equal to a good pair of astronomy binoculars, which we would probably recommend instead if you are on a very tight budget.
List Price: $75
While not particularly useful overall, the FirstScope offers a super-cheap introduction to the world of telescopes in a diminutive package. It’s not a serious observation tool by any means. The views through this instrument at even low powers are mushy, and the eyepieces feel like looking through a drinking straw. The FirstScope Moon version is identical but with a different optical tube decoration.
List Price: $79
National Geographic 76mm Compact Reflector
Little more than a rebadged FirstScope with low-quality Huygens eyepieces and a higher price, the NatGeo 76mm is a poor deal when you can get FirstScope versions that come with acceptable-quality accessories (though the same flawed optics) at its price range.
Rank Category: 4″ (100mm) Tabletop Dobsonians
Unfortunately, there are currently no good 100mm tabletop Dobsonians available in the USA. The Zhumell Z100 and Orion SkyScanner 100—both of which once dominated this price range—are no longer sold. Orion has gone bankrupt in 2024, and Zhumell is being discontinued by its parent company, Celestron.
Rank Category: 4.5″ (114mm) Tabletop Dobsonians
114mm tabletop Dobsonians have parabolic primary mirrors for sharp images in place of the spherical mirrors used in 76mm tabletop Dobsonians. Compared to 76mm dobsonians, they offer more than twice gain in light-gathering ability and a 50% gain in resolving power, with the ability to adjust collimation (the alignment of the telescope’s mirrors) provisioned for as well. However, with the discontinuation of Orion’s StarBlast 4.5 Astro and the Zhumell Z114, this category is no longer my favorite.
Zhumell Z114 Tabletop Dobsonian: Library Telescope Edition
With a high-quality 4.5” primary mirror that’s easy to collimate and a simple Dobsonian mount, the Zhumell Z114 used to be a great choice—until its price doubled from $150 to $300 over just 3–4 years. Today, the only version still available is the Library Edition, which includes some changes compared to the classic Z114, and is sold exclusively through High Point Scientific.
List Price: $379
Being a tabletop Dobsonian reflector with 4.5” high-quality primary mirror that’s easy to collimate, a simple Dobsonian mount, and quality accessories, Celestron StarSense Explorer 114mm Dobsonian is great for looking at the deep sky due to its inherent wide field of view, and returns okay results with planets as well. It is capable, but is a pricey pick. You could get a 130mm tabletop Dobsonian for the money. The StarSense Explorer technology is very helpful in locating targets, though.
Rank Category: 130mm (5″) Tabletop Dobsonians
A 5” telescope gives you another 30% gain in light-collecting power over a 4.5” and is still extremely portable and easy to set up. The longer focal ratios of most of these scopes also make them more forgiving of cheap eyepieces like the ones provided with these telescopes, as well as laxer collimation tolerances.
The Virtuoso GTi 130P includes a pair of great eyepieces, a collimation tool, and also features a collapsible tube that allows it to fit into a smaller space. The Virtuoso GTi 130P also has computerized tracking (GoTo) functionality that doesn’t hinder the ability to move the telescope manually if you want to—even when the GoTo system is powered on and aligned.
But we think that the usefulness of the ‘computerized’ feature with a wide-field and relatively small instrument like the GTi 130P is questionable, especially when its larger aperture version, the Virtuoso GTi 150P, is only a bit more expensive. You can’t see much of the deep sky objects with a small aperture, wide-field telescope, even if there is a computerized system there to help you find them. The manual 130mm version, Heritage 130P, that we’ve ranked just below might be a better bargain if you want to save some money.
List Price: $305
The Heritage 130P is essentially a non-GoTo version of the above-mentioned Virtuoso GTi 130P, with the same user-friendly tabletop Dobsonian mount and collapsible tube. This 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.
The Celestron StarSense Explorer 130mm Dobsonian has optics similar to the Sky-Watcher Heritage/Virtuoso 130 models, but adds tube rings—eliminating the need for a light shroud—and a nicer focuser. Its major difference is the inclusion of Celestron’s StarSense Explorer technology, which helps you locate objects using your smartphone, though it does not track them. However, at the price Celestron is asking, you could get the far superior, fully computerized Sky-Watcher Virtuoso GTi 130P tabletop Dobsonian (ranked above).
Rank Category: 6″ (150mm) Tabletop Dobsonians
A 6′′ tabletop Dobsonian is great for those who need an ultra-portable scope with a decent aperture, but it will really need a custom support or a permanent solid surface, not a table. You get a lot more portability compared to freestanding 6” f/8 Dobsonians, and the faster f/5 focal ratio of these tabletop scopes allows them to achieve a similar field of view to even a 6” f/8 freestanding dobsonian equipped with a 2” focuser.
The Sky-Watcher Virtuoso GTi 150P is a fully computerized 6” tabletop dobsonian telescope in a compact, lightweight package. With quality optics, well-made included eyepieces, and the ability to be used manually even while the mount’s electronics are powered on and aligned with the sky, it’s hard to argue against this fabulous instrument, especially at its price. Remarkably, this computerized 6″ scope is priced similarly to a manual-only 6″ aperture telescope. Besides the Apertura AD8 freestanding Dobsonian, this is the second most popular telescope choice among our beginner group of readers.
The SkyWatcher Heritage 150P is the non-computerized version of the SkyWatcher Virtuoso GTi 150P, with no other significant differences. The requirements, compromises, and benefits are all same, except for the absence of the computerized system.
List Price: $559
The Celestron StarSense Explorer 150mm Dobsonian uses a standard 150mm f/5 optics similar to the SkyWatcher Heritage/Virtuoso 150 tabletops and has a similar single-armed tabletop base. Considering that the similar-optic, fully computerized Virtuoso GTi 150P is quite a bit less expensive, we can’t really think of a good reason to go with the StarSense Explorer 150mm Dobsonian over the dozen picks ahead of it, though it certainly delivers excellent views and is aided by the easy-to-use StarSense Explorer smartphone app and technology.