2024 the best telescope for beginners review
Price: $79.89
(as of Dec 14, 2024 18:01:13 UTC - Details)
Warranty & Support
Feedback
Designed with American innovation for beginner stargazers, the Celestron Travel Scope 80 is a professionally engineered refractor telescope that is perfect for celestial or terrestrial viewing on the go. It’s the perfect telescope for adults and kids to use together with its coated, high-quality glass optics, including a 80mm objective lens. The aperture allows higher-resolution viewing, without adding a lot of extra weight. Optical coating on the lens allows more light to enter, providing sharper, crisper views, day or at night. This Celestron telescope for beginners is designed with several bonus accessories that make it even more functional and user-friendly. We’ve included two quality eyepieces (20mm and 10mm), and a star diagonal for crisp low- and high-power viewing. Enjoy close-ups of wildlife in nature or stargaze with family and friends. This telescope also comes with a smartphone adapter that allows you to connect any smartphone to any telescope eyepiece with an outside diameter of 45mm or smaller to capture images and video through the eyepiece. You’ll be amazed how easy it is to capture great images of the Moon and planets. The Celestron Travel Scope 80 weighs just 6 pounds and assembles in seconds with no tools required. It’s easy to use to navigate the sky. When your observing session is over, everything packs up into the handy included travel backpack. Your purchase also entitles you to a FREE download of Celestron’s BONUS Starry Night Astronomy Software with information on thousands of celestial objects, printable sky maps, and more. It’s the best way to learn about the night sky and plan your next observing session. Celestron is the world’s #1 telescope brand, with telescopes in world-class research observatories and even aboard the International Space Station. Now your family can enjoy a quality Celestron telescope in a portable package and at a price to fit your budget.
80 mm refractor telescope with fully coated glass optics and a lightweight frame.
Custom backpack included to store your telescope and accessories comfortably.
Observe in no time with a quick and easy, no-tool setup. / Adjustable height tripod.
Accessories include: two eyepieces (20 mm and 10 mm), erect image star diagonal, finderscope, and a smartphone adapter.
Pan handle Alt-Az control with clutch for smooth and accurate pointing.
Reviewer: snailmailmike
Rating: 5.0 out of 5 stars
Title: This little scope has revived my interest in astronomy
Review: I've had a 8" diameter dobsonian telescope for about 25 years but wanted a smaller scope I could take camping when I didn't feel like dragging the heavy, 4 foot long one with me. I also wanted one I could use as a spotting scope for birding.There are only two things I don't like about this scope. 1) tripod is way to wimpy. Even on a name brand heavier-duty tripod, it's less stable than a dobsonian. The tripod it comes with is barely adequate. It works best if placed on a sturdy table with the legs extended just far enough to make it less tippy. 2) There is some lense flare when looking at Mars, but this is to be expected for this price of scope. There is also some minor purple fringing around the edge of the moon, but the moon looks so gorgeous thru it that you forget to notice.Now for what I like:1) Portability - doesn't kill my back to haul it outside. Sets up in minutes. So easy to take outside, I use it all the time. I'd only haul my big scope out a couple times a year because it was too heavy.2) The moon looks so AWESOME thru this scope!!!3) Jupiter: you can see several of the moons. I haven't been able to make out any of the color bands as I kinda can with my bigger scope, but that's to be expected due to the size/cost of this one.3) Saturn: It's my favorite planet. Even though it looks tiny in this scope, you can see the rings and it's beautiful.I was able to see the nebula in Orion's sword from the city (I live on the outskirts of Salt Lake City) It was really beautiful on one especially dark night, but most nights it's not dark enough to see it well. I haven't been able to see other nebulas I've looked for. I expect that when I'm able to get away from the city lights I'll be able to see more nebulas and galaxies. (Nebulas and planets thru backyard telescopes don't look like most photos. You don't see the colors. Nebulas look like gray clouds. They can still be beautiful tho).The eyepieces feel cheap, very light weight, but are surprisingly good. Better than I expected for the price. They have enough eye relief that They work ok with my eyeglasses, but I prefer to take my glasses off when looking thru the scope.I haven't tried the digiscoping adapter yet, but I've experimented with a similar one on my other scope. Digiscoping is tricky and often not all you hope it'd be, but you might get some good photos of the moon.I haven't really tried it as a spotting scope yet, other than to look at some leaves at the top of a tree, and expect it'll be good for that. I'm considering buying a zoom eyepiece for that.All in all, I think this is an amazing scope for the price. Too bad the tripod isn't as good as the scope. If you can get a heavier tripod, you'll love this scope, especially if you can find some dark skies. But even from the city, the Moon, Saturn & Jupiter are so amazing thru this scope.
Reviewer: goodwitchdn
Rating: 5.0 out of 5 stars
Title: Good for price
Review: This is great for first time user and even above that!!
Reviewer: CustomerX
Rating: 4.0 out of 5 stars
Title: good optics, horrible mount system
Review: I bought this for a camping trip at the last minute to have a portable telescope. Optics are great and in the dark sky I was able to see the Orion Nebula really well. The Pleides also looks great. Comes with a couple eyepieces that I think are worth the value of the scope in itself. Those eyepieces are good ones, not amazing ones, but good to be easy to see.The tripod is a simple camera mount so not very sturdy and wind can easily move. to be expected and I'm okay with that part.However the mount system is horrible for a telescope. Makes it impossible to track sky objects or move from one spot to another easily, doesn't allow for fine adjustments. Overall the mount is horrible and worthless for star observing. That said, if you plan to use for terrestrial use, it will be just fine.I plan on upgrading the mount as that should be easy to change out with something I design and print. Overall I am very happy with the purchase for the price.
Reviewer: Nitish
Rating: 3.0 out of 5 stars
Title: Decent beginner telescope, very good for grab-and-go and terrestrial viewing
Review: Hi all, this will be a very honest review for the Travel Scope 80.Aperture diameter: 80mm,Focal length: 400mm,Eyepieces provided: 20mm (x20), 10mm (x40).Diagonal provided: Amici type prism with fully erect image and corrected left-right.Also provided is a tripod with AZ mount and backpack.OTA (Optical Tube Assembly): I must say it is a very good OTA for beginners. It is well collimated (at least the one I received was) and the coatings are good. The dew shield does its job. Stars look point-like and chromatic aberration is not that significant. Very good for observing the moon and Jupiter. I also observed Saturn, but got some chromatic aberration when pushed a bit with a Barlow. However, perfect for terrestrial viewing with the 2 provided eyepieces, which is why the manual explicitly says that this telescope was designed for terrestrial viewing.Mount: it is a plastic alt-azimuth mount. It is very difficult to use, not because it is complicated but because of the plastic I presume. It seems you can't get the right amount of tension to hold the tube firmly and when it is tight, you can move around well. It has lots of backlash. The mount can make you hate the telescope. I am very passionate and I don't mind the hassle but for someone else, it might be a handful.Tripod: I am sad to say, it is worse than the mount. In order to make the telescope portable, the tripod and mount were downsized considerably. To a point where the legs simply cannot cope. A slight wind will give you huge vibrations at high magnification. Even if you touch the telescope or the eyepiece or the tripod during an observation you will see huge vibrations. I sincerely think the tripod could have been better made with steel and a little thicker. This is space in the backpack which is left to exploit.Then you have the plastic focuser. You can make it work but everytime you touch it, the vibrations simply make it near impossible. You will need a lot of patience. The diagonal is Amici and very light. It is good for terrestrial viewing but for stars you will need a coated star-diagonal, else you will lose brightness and you will see a vertical line cutting your stars.Finally, let me tell you about my experience. This is my first telescope. I am a physicist and astronomer actually but I had no experience in optical astronomy. So, I gave this one a try. Good price and good bargain, considering it is easy to grab and run (which I do frequently due to the many trees in my back yard), and it is very very portable with the included backpack. I had some good times observing the planets, the moon and a couple of star clusters and nebula. Ok, don't expect to observe what some are claiming here. You will not see the clouds of nebulae nor any eye-catching colours. You will need huge apertures and good skies, or Hubble, to observe these. And the beautiful pictures of nebulae are done with long exposure astrophotography; for this you need at least a tracking equatorial mount. This little scope will only show you the brightest stars of the nebula and if you draw them and compare with Hubble's images, you will understand the patterns you were actually observing and what you were actually missing. I am a passionate astronomer, so I am quite happy with just that. I also like to climb to mountains, so I took the scope with me several times. I love this, even though the winds at the summit unsettle the setup easily.Good grab and go and an inexpensive little toy for kids and for terrestrial viewing. Good telescope for beginners although the mount and tripod might discourage some of you.
Reviewer: Ricardo Medina
Rating: 5.0 out of 5 stars
Title:
Review: Bueno, bonito y barato.Lo compré para ver el eclipse de sol de 2024 y fue fácil de armar, de colocar, y se veÃa muy claro.Si quieren ver el sol recuerden que hay que comprar un filtro adicional especial para sol.Trae instrucciones en varios idiomas, muchas piezas y una mochila para transportarlo. Además, llegó en 2 dÃas, 3 dÃas antes de lo esperado.Definitivamente una muy buena compra, lo recomiendo.
Reviewer: Diego Zanella
Rating: 3.0 out of 5 stars
Title:
Review: Ãtimo produto, chegou dentro da data prevista, muita qualidade, porém não veio completo. Faltou o adaptador para o celular... Me retornaram que enviariam, estou aguardando.
Reviewer: RW
Rating: 5.0 out of 5 stars
Title:
Review: Fun to bring along camping with us.
Reviewer: Alex
Rating: 5.0 out of 5 stars
Title:
Review: This scope is really well packages and super portable. It is easy to use and the moon looks great in it. I haven't been able to spend time doing deeper space objects, I need a really dark sky for that. This scope is best suited for the MOON and planets and general space. The quality is good. The deluxe package has all the stuff you need. This is a good scope to have as a 2nd scope if your larger scope isn't portable. I had a larger celesctron scope 20 years ago and it was not portable but it was larger, anyways this is a nice fun scope.
Reviewer: Mary
Rating: 3.0 out of 5 stars
Title:
Review: Ben qualité et zoom bon,pied un peu délicat pour les réglages pas facile à régler
Customers say
Customers find the telescope easy to use and lightweight. They find it simple to set up and take down, making it perfect for beginners. The spherical lens is great for amateur astronomers who don't want to mess with complicated technology. Customers are satisfied with clarity. However, some customers dislike the tripod quality. There are differing opinions on sturdiness, value for money, and visibility.
AI-generated from the text of customer reviews