Celestron NexStar 8SE
Cost: £1,499 (approx. $1,799.90)
From: Celestron
1 One of the most striking things about the Celestron NexStar 8SE is its compact and practical size, despite offering a long focal length. The body is clutter-free, so you can easily pick it up and transport it to where it’s needed without worrying about breaking anything or accidentally snapping things off. It’s fairly heavy, but that gives it a robust and sturdy feel – much appreciated when you’re spending this sort of money. The telescope is controlled using an in-built hand controller. We also liked the feeling of using the hands-on controller with tactile, easy-to-use buttons rather than having to rely on a smartphone app. Astrophotographers taking long exposures will love the smooth and accurate tracking thanks to the mount’s high-quality motorised functionality.
Sky-Watcher Heritage 114P Virtuoso
Cost: £239 (approx. $286.95)
From: Sky-Watcher
2 Despite its diminutive size and light weight, the Heritage 114P isn’t lacking in features. It offers the whole Newtonian reflector experience, with the added benefit of being able to automatically counteract the rotation of Earth and track the sky. With the mount’s AA battery or DC-powered motors switched on, you can smoothly slew across the sky using the built-in controls and then steadily keep your object of interest in the field of view. The tabletop Dobsonian mount can be upgraded at any time with Sky-Watcher’s SynScan GoTo handset. This can find more than 40,000 objects in the sky for you – useful for tracking down those very faint sights that don’t readily jump out.
Orion StarBlast 6i IntelliScope
Cost: £477.99 / $483
From: Orion
3 The StarBlast 6i is capable of resolving stars in brighter globular clusters as well as the structures of planetary nebulae. The supplied eyepieces provide good starting points for exploring a range of deep-sky objects, including large emission nebulae and compact clouds. The included red-dot finder is a slight drawback to the overall package, but it uses a standard dovetail mounting shoe and can be upgraded to an optical finder anytime. The StarBlast 6i’s unique selling point is its intelligent pushto Dobsonian mount, which is not only compact and sturdy, but capable of helping you navigate the stars to find more than 14,000 objects. With built-in encoders and a handset using just a single nine-volt battery, it directs you to manually slew the telescope to find whatever you’re looking for.
Sky-Watcher Skyliner 200P
Cost: £379 (approx. $455.10)
From: Sky-Watcher
4 TheSkyliner 200P is the most affordable way to enjoy deep-sky astronomy at this standard. Its basic Dobsonian mount can’t find
