Telescope recommendations for beginners?

Ceno

I know nothing about telescopes or astronomy, other than that I think space is really awesome and want to start looking at it through a telescope. Anyone have any recommendations for a telescope that's good for beginners and doesn't break the bank? Would like to keep it between $100-$200 (but could possibly go a little over $200 if it's substantially worth it).

Djeet

I got this one to use with my kid and I'd buy it again as a gift. This was several years back so you may be able to find something in that general price range with a larger aperture which directly informs light-gathering capability (brighter image). Spend the rest on good quality eyepieces and a barlow that you can take with you and use on the scope you upgrade to.

djmitchella

This thread covers some of this stuff from a while ago, though possibly a bit higher up the price range. That said, I was just going to try and find a tabletop Dobsonian like the one Djeet posted, so I guess that's already covered.

http://findascope.com/ has more of the same sort of thing (that site was broken with adblock turned on, fwiw, the links vanished), just getting bigger as the price goes up.

ASimPerson

I found this book to be a pretty good starter's guide to the hobby: https://www.amazon.com/Backyard-Astronomers-Guide-Terence-Dickinson/dp/1554073448/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1472450768&sr=1-1&keywords=the+backyard+astronomer's+guide

a5ehren

ASimPerson wrote: »

I found this book to be a pretty good starter's guide to the hobby: https://www.amazon.com/Backyard-Astronomers-Guide-Terence-Dickinson/dp/1554073448/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1472450768&sr=1-1&keywords=the+backyard+astronomer's+guide

First, this. This book is really good at setting expectations, etc.

If you're in the US, this scope is supposed to be really good for $200. If you're not, I believe Celestron sells it under another name in other markets.

What do you get for 4x the money compared to the FirstScope?
130mm aperture - thanks to physics, this gets you 4x the light gathering ability, to let you see more stuff.
Better eyepieces - makes it a little easier to find stuff due to wider FOV - with the FirstScope, you'll be tossing out those eyepieces when you move on, but 25/10mm Plossls are at least usable while you build up other parts of your collection (saves you about $25/each, with significantly better eyepieces costing *much* more).