Best Refractor Telescopes of 2026

Nine hundred millimeters of focal length behind a 70mm lens is an old combination, and it still earns its keep: at f/12.9 the AstroMaster is gentle on eyepieces and throws a big, high-contrast lunar image. We think it is the best cheap telescope here for the Moon and the planets, and the reason isn't the glass. It's the mount.

That mount is a metal altazimuth head with a panhandle you squeeze and steer, sitting on a tripod whose locking accessory tray braces the legs. It settles quickly after a touch, which is more than the lightest tripods in this group manage. Setup takes a few minutes and no tools: legs out, tube on, red-dot finder aligned in daylight against a distant roof.

The two eyepieces give 45x and 90x, and 90x is enough to trace the Moon's terminator and pull Saturn's rings out as a clean ellipse when the air is steady. Where it runs out is faintness. Seventy millimeters doesn't gather much light, so galaxies stay smudges and most nebulae are out of reach, and the long tube's narrow field makes the red dot and a little patience mandatory.

It doubles as a daytime scope, since the erect-image diagonal puts the view right way up, and at 10.8 pounds with the tripod already assembled it is the one here an adult can carry out one-handed along with a mug of coffee.

Stainless steel tripod legs are the first thing we look for on an inexpensive refractor, and the Dianfan has them. Aluminum legs at this price flex and ring, and a 90mm tube on a flexing mount is worse than a 70mm on a solid one.

The rest of the kit is just as complete: a 90mm objective on an 800mm tube, two Kellner eyepieces, a 3x Barlow, a phone adapter, and a carry bag that swallows all of it. At f/8.8 the scope is easy on those eyepieces, and 80x with the 10mm holds a clean lunar image without the view swimming while you focus. The stainless legs plus the accessory tray are what make that possible.

Where it beats the top pick is simple: it costs a fraction and still shows the Moon's craters, Jupiter's four bright moons, and Saturn's rings. We think this is the right first telescope for a family that isn't certain the hobby will stick. What we don't buy is the magnification headline, since 240x comes from stacking the Barlow on the 10mm, and a 90mm lens can't hold a usable image that high on an ordinary night.

The phone adapter is the weak accessory: a fiddly clamp that takes longer to center over the eyepiece than the photo is worth until you've practiced it. Assembly runs about fifteen minutes the first time and less after that.

The Koolpte folds down into a padded shoulder bag with the tripod, eyepieces, and phone adapter inside, and it comes back out in a couple of minutes without a single tool. That's the whole pitch: a telescope light enough to leave by the door and compact enough to throw in a car for a weekend.

We think that's worth more than the spec sheet suggests, because the telescope that gets used is the one that's easy to carry outside. The 80mm f/6.7 tube is short enough to swing onto a bird feeder in daylight and wide enough to sweep the Milky Way at 24x without hunting. The wireless remote and phone adapter also mean a kid can photograph the Moon without gripping the tube and blurring the shot.

The trade for that wide field is color. A fast achromatic doublet like this one leaves a violet halo around the Moon's bright limb and around Jupiter, and the planets stay small at 60x. The aluminum tripod is the lightest-duty in this group too, so pushing the 3x Barlow to 180x mostly shows you the mount's weaknesses rather than the sky's.

Keep it at 24x and 60x, on short legs, and this is the scope that ends up in the trunk on every clear weekend. That is not a small thing for a first telescope.

Seventeen and a half pounds is heavy for a 90mm telescope, and the Gskyer's heft is the first thing you notice lifting it out of the box. We think the weight buys something real: an aluminum tripod that doesn't shiver the way the lightest ones here do, and a scope that holds its aim while you swap eyepieces.

The tube is 90mm at f/6.7, the same aperture as the Dianfan in a much shorter 600mm package. That means a wide field: the Pleiades fit in the view, Andromeda's core and its two companions fit, and sweeping the Milky Way at 24x actually works. Three eyepieces come in the box, at 24x, 60x, and 120x, along with a 3x Barlow, and the 6x30 optical finder shows faint stars a red dot can't.

What holds it back is the top end. The 5mm eyepiece's 120x sits close to what a 90mm lens can manage on an average night and higher than this mount makes comfortable, so that last eyepiece spends more time in the case than in the diagonal. Start at 24x, learn the finder, and step up only when the air is still.

For clusters, the Moon at quarter phase, and the wide comet that turns up every few years, the field and the finder earn the lifting. For a scope that goes camping, this isn't it.

There is no mount, no eyepiece, and no finder in the SV503's box, just the tube, a pair of rings, a dovetail plate, and a 2-inch to 1.25-inch adapter. That isn't an oversight. It's what this telescope is: an optical tube for someone who already owns a mount and a case of eyepieces.

What you pay for is glass. The 102mm objective is an S-FPL51 ED doublet, the specification that suppresses the violet fringing fast achromats leave on the Moon's limb and the edges of bright stars. The dual-speed 1:10 focuser makes fine focus possible at high magnification and with a camera hanging off the back, the 360-degree field rotator lets you frame a shot without rotating the tube in its rings, and the retractable dew shield is one less thing to pack.

We think this is the best telescope here for imaging and the wrong one for a first night. On a capable mount it produces crisp, true-color views and takes a camera without complaint; aimed at the sky with nothing attached, it shows you nothing at all. The 90mm of focus travel is generous for visual use but worth checking before you add a filter wheel or an off-axis guider.

The build is what earns it a place: all-metal fittings, a focuser that doesn't shift under load, and rings that hold the tube where you put it. Budget for the mount before the telescope.