In the December 2005 issue of Sky & Telescope, Gary Seronik reviewed a collection of telescopes costing less than $200. He selected five scopes that stood well above the pack in terms of performance and usability. Many of the telescopes that he liked less are no longer being sold, but his five winners are still going strong — though some of them now cost more than $200. It's quite likely that if we were to conduct the same survey today, we would still pick the same 5 as our top scopes.

To make a long story very short, the top-performing scopes are the:

Orion XT4.5 Classic Dobsonian
Orion Starblast 4.5 Astro Reflector
Orion SpaceProbe 3 Altazimuth Reflector
Orion Observer 70-mm Altazimuth Refractor
Edmund Scientifics Astroscan

These telescopes are listed in order, with the best first. But there's more to a scope than a comparative ranking. Each of these has its own strengths and weaknesses, and each is the perfect scope for certain purposes. So by all means click here to download Gary's complete review as a printable, 300-Kb PDF File.

Also worthy of mention are the Celestron FirstScope and the Galileoscope. Both deliver surprisingly good performance at startlingly low cost, but neither is a complete, fully capable package, like the telescopes that Gary selected. The FirstScope needs better eyepieces and some kind of finder to live up to its potential. And the Galileoscope comes without a mount — one of the most important components of any serious telescopes. In fact, the Galileoscope may be best as an educational kit, though plenty of people have done serious astronomical observing with it, too.

If you're new to astronomy, take a look at the articles in our Tools for Stargazing section — especially Chosing Your First Telescope.