Even you are the first timer, beginner or professional who is curious to know about things other than our beloving earth. There are lots of beautiful and mysterious things out of our planet which attracts everyone. That is why the fan club of a telescope is growing day by day because this is the only thing which makes it possible for our to view all those nebula, cosmos, stargazers and other curious revolving things.
We all have the curiosity to know new things, learn about them and this is the human race has grown up. We become an imaginative and creative person our self and of course, we want the same thing to happen to our lovely kids, family and dear ones. The telescope under 100 USD can be best and rememberable gift you can give to anyone. They will thank you later for giving them those memorable views in their lifetime.
Keep in mind that with the budget telescope you can not watch a planet or thing which is on another galaxy for sure. A lot of people uses the cheap and affordable binoculars to watch things like stars and moons, but for obvious reasons, you can’t replace telescope technology with something else.
Best Telescope under 100$:
Here is List of Best Budget Telescope Under $100:
1. Celestron 21035 70mm Travel Scope:
The telescope is perfect for your young champs and for starters who want to have a good view of terrestrial and celestial. Traveling is your cup of tea and you want your telescope to be a rough and tough. This is easy to assemble and use a tool with the good optics.
Celestron 21035 is refractive type telescope with the aperture of 70 mm, which is good enough to gather all required light from an object you want to see through your telescope.
The weight of the telescope is only 3.3 pounds and moreover, it comes along with the good accessory. You will find the tripod, carry bag and full guide from the makers.
Tripod is an essential thing if you want to get the focused and stable image.
Now come to the features, it is really easy to assemble telescope, just screw your telescope rod over the tripod and you are ready to enjoy the outer world.
When you hold the telescope black body it is of fine quality but we expect much better plastic than this. It is really easy to assemble telescope, just screw your telescope rod over the tripod and you are ready to enjoy the outer world.
After all the assembly work, we check the quality of optics and we find all the lenses are coated. This is of good quality as well. We are able to get clear and crisp images with no problems.
The focal length of the primary lens is 400 mm. You can get a view with two different magnifications because we get two eyepiece lens with it. The magnification of the first smaller lens is 20x and that of a bigger eyepiece lens is 40x.
This is good telescope for the beginners and those who can not live without travel.
| Pros | Cons |
|---|---|
| 👍 Portable and Lightweight. | 👎 Unstable Tripod comes as accessory. |
| 👍 Warranty- 2 years. | 👎 Plastic made things are of poor quality. |
| 👍 High Quality Optics. |
2. Meade Instruments Infinity 70mm AZ Refractor Telescope:
The low price refractor telescope which is perfect for begineers and hobbist who wants to enjoy within the limits of price range and want to learn astronomy aswell.
The aperture size of 70 mm (2.8 inches) which is good for the telescope under 100 USD.
The focal length of an objective lens is 700 mm with the focal ratio of f/10, this makes a steady field of view.
Also, the amazing features it has is altazimuth mount which is perfect for controling slow motion for viewing the stars or light which are in some motions. This is supported by the Red dot viewfinder, you never lost your object.
| Pros | Cons |
|---|---|
| 👍 Multi coating optics. | 👎 Weight. |
| 👍 Tripod is made of Aluminium. | 👎 The Barlow lens makes the focus too long. |
| 👍 Calibrated Image is produced. |
3. Orion 10012 SkyScanner 100mm TableTop Reflector Telescope:
This is the entry level equipped with the reflector technology means loss of light will be lesser. This Orion Skyscanner comes with the aperture size of 100 mm which is an excellent thing. Being the user one enjoys the lightweight and quality of optics for both day and night views.
It includes two eyepieces one with the 1.25 inches focal lengths, so you may enjoy the 20x and 40x magnification.
The first look of this telescope is very attractive due to the burgundy color. The optical tube is made of metal, not the plastic. The mirrors are used inside the tube for the functioning of a telescope.
The size does not tell the story of this compact telescope. You can see through the moon and Jupiter with great details and shining stars as well with a sharp view.
This telescope design if perfect for newbies with the great magnification power and field of view if somewhat good. If you fond of using the telescope at night time. My bet is on this telescope in that case.
| Pros | Cons |
|---|---|
| 👍 Stylish look. | 👎 You need a tabletop tripod. |
| 👍 Good resolving power. | 👎 Extra Accessory is required. |
| 👍 Big size aperture. | |
| 👍 Stable image quality. | |
| 👍 High Quality and Sturdy build. |
4. Gskyer Telescope, AZ70700 German Technology Telescope, Instruments Infinity Refractor:
This brand is not renowned and underrated in the field of the telescope, but German-based technology is what made us to put this in the list of an affordable telescope. Perfect for your kids and young enthusiasts.
This is another refractor telescope which lets you enjoy terrestrial and celestial views. The aperture size is just like others is 70 mm only, with the focal length of 700 mm and the focal ratio is f/10.
It comes with the two eyepiece lens which can be adjusted as per user preference for the magnification purpose. TheBarloww lens makes the magnification triple times.
The stainless steel tripod is strong and durable with the altazimuth mount technology which keeps your focus on moving objects as well. It allows the slow-motion control for the precise tracking of moving objects.
Overall experience is good but we still believes it need lots of improvement.
| Pros | Cons |
|---|---|
| 👍 Altazimuth mount. | 👎 Magnification need to be better. |
| 👍 Barlow lens is there. | 👎 Not easy to use for kids. |
5. Celestron PowerSeeker 70EQ Telescope:
There are so many Best Telescope under 100 $ from the brand like Celestron which provides the quality products. The features it provides finds in the expensive telescopes. This is another refractor based telescope which is 70 mm in aperture, hence light it gather is quite good.
The construction is stable with high quality, your telescope with not easily disassemble even with shakes and moves you might faces while traveling. The slow-motion technology lets to put focus as the image will be calibrated by telescope automatically and little movements will be compensated without let you know.
The glasses are fully coated which surely won’t reflect any of the object rays which enters the telescope and that is an obvious reason your image clarity will be of high quality. They include Barlow lenses which will enhance the eyepiece lens image and it magnify the view by three times.
| Pros | Cons |
|---|---|
| 👍 Good for beginners. | 👎 Much of accessory is made of plastic. |
| 👍 Easy to assemble. | 👎 Not for professionals. |
| 👍 Lightweight and durable. |
Basic Terminology you should know about Telescope:
1. Aperture Size:
It is the opening of the tube, through which the light enters into the telescope. Thumb rule is bigger the aperture, better the image will produce by the telescope. The reason behind this is simple, more light enters through the lens/hole the sharper image will be a result.
The size of the aperture is measured in millimeters and inches most of the times. Below are the pictures showing how aperture size opening matters the view of the sky, star or any other astronomy thing.
The aperture source changes depending on the type of telescope you are using. In the refractive telescope, the objective lens (primary lens) is called the aperture. Similarly, in a reflective telescope, the main mirror collects all the light which enter the telescope, hence called an aperture.
Aperture is same as the most important features of the telescope, which is used while choosing DSLR camera in photography for taking sharp and crisp images.
2. Focal Length (Convergence Power):
This factor depends on the quality and size of the objective lens (or Mirror) we use. Focal length is the distance between the primary lens and the point on the focal which produce after the convergence of the light at one point, where a real image will be formed. It is measured in millimeter or inches.
The length of the telescope is somewhere depends on the focal length. The bigger focal length can be degraded by modern optics which has high convergence power.
There is another term called as focal ratio need to be explained this point. The focal ratio is the ratio between the focal length and diameter of the primary lens (mirror). The high value of focal ratio means your field of view will be less and you get a grainy image. Lower focal ratio means your field of view will bigger and you will get sharp and focussed images.
3. Magnification Power:
Though there are many things which inhale the magnification of the telescope such as aperture, a focal length of the eyepiece (optics) and eyesight/field of view of the user. In simple language, the magnification power means how many times (bigger size) of your object with appear with the help of eyepiece lens.
The image which produces at the point of the focal length (F) of the primary lens (mirror), will be produced with the help of eyepiece lens (f) and it will also have the different focal length.
The formula for calculating the Magnification power is the MP is equal to the Focal length of the Objective Lens (F) to the focal length of the eyepiece (f). Thus, MP=(F/f)As the aperture will remain almost same in all the telescope but the magnification can now only be changed by changing the eyepiece lens.
4. Resolving Power:
It basically means how the telescope differentiate two bodies (say two different stars) from each other. The should not be seen as submerged into each other. A telescope is said to have good resolving power only if two stars will appear at some separation distance along with the sharp image. One should able to see the details of each body even if they are close to each other.
There are mainly 3 different types of telescopes:
1. Refractive Telescope:
It is the most common and cheapest of all the telescope available in the market. Their design is very easy, both the objective and eyepiece lens (there is no mirror inside) are sealed inside the vacuum long tube. We often called refractive of type rugged because all the lens are bound inside the tube so concisely and it is hard to disassemble even with the small shocks.
Basically, the performance depends on the lens quality used in the refractive telescopes.
Working is simple, light enters through the one big mouth of the objective lens, then it bends due to the refracting properties of an Objective lens from one side. The light which passes through the aperture (objective lens) will meet the one point (on the focal length), then the image formed from the bending of objective lens will be magnified by the eyepiece lens, which is responsible for the final image.
The refractive based telescope is perfect for stargazing and planetary. The images produced by this telescope is sharp, but due to chromatic effect, the higher wavelength the light enter through a primary lens (objective lens) does not bend easily, means you will notice the colors around the image. This chromatic effect though can be countered by advanced technology used from nowadays makers.
You will find lots of Best Telescope under $100 falls in the refractive telescope because they are cheap. The downside is the Objective lens is very big and the telescope tube is long, which makes the size bigger and bulkier to transport easily.
2. Reflective Telescope:
Also known as Newtonians or catoptrics version of a telescope. It uses the combination of both mirrors and lenses. This type of telescope is compact in size that is the reason this is the favorite choice for most of the astronomy enthusiasts.
The design is simple but still much complicated than that of refractive type telescope. The light enters from the hole and touches the big mirror (primary mirror) on the one end of the binoculars. Then this primary mirror reflects all the light it gathers to another smaller size mirror which is known as the secondary mirror. The user can enjoy the view through the eyepiece lens which magnifies the image pass on by the secondary mirror.
The reflective telescope is the combination of the mirrors (not lenses), thus it reflects all wavelength light through the mirror. You will observe better and sharp images than the refractive. Also, you will get rid off the chromatic effect which can be seen in the refractive based telescope.
They are compact and easy to assemble and disassemble, you can take it anywhere because of its size and features. The downside is that the mirror is fragile, flimsy and you need to keep them in a safe place with extra care. If we look into the price, you can see the variety of price range. People run for the expensive telescope, but that will be waste if you know what is your requirement and features you want in your telescope.
The reflective telescope gathers more light from the bigger mouth of the aperture which indeed responsible for better image results.
3. Catadioptric/Compound Telescope:
It is hybrid of both the refractive and reflective telescope. It uses both the advantages that lie within other types of telescope explain above. Compound Telescope uses both the mirror and lenses. This is the modern day example of the telescope. It has a bigger opening of the aperture which forms the best image out of other telescopes.
This is a multipurpose telescope which produces the high-quality image with the better field of view.
The compact small tube, at the opening of the binocular you can see the corrective plate, which allows the object light to pass on to the primary mirror. After hitting theses primary mirrors the light will be reflected and pass on to the secondary mirror. After that, the magnification work is done through the eyepiece lens.
Overall they are cheaper, portable, multi-featured and have good optics.
Apart from all these three basic types of telescope, there are lots of specialized very high specifications telescopes which are designed for special events only. We ignore them to include in the list of best telescope under 100 USD.
CONCLUSION:
There are tons of telescopes based on size, shapes, and technology it uses. But have tested each above-described telescope so to get best affordable telescope under the budget of $100. You can choose any of the above without any worry since all are big brands and trusted backed by high reviews from Best10lab and other stargazers.
Reference Websites:
1. https://thebackyardgnome.com/beginners-guide-to-setting-up-a-telescope/