If your children are fascinated by the moon, stars, and planets, consider buying them a child telescope. We are not talking about a toy or a pirate's plastic telescope, but a real quality telescope designed specifically for novice star gazers. Now it is important to choose a telescope that allows for optimal viewing of celestial bodies while providing a clear magnified view of your targeted celestial bodies. This allows the beginner to enter the amazing world of astronomy and take an important step in better understanding their universe .

What Type of Beginner Telescope Should You Consider?

With fewer moving parts and a simplistic, well-crafted design, the refracting telescope design has been highly recommended by some experts as one of the best beginner telescopes. Others believe that an easy-to-use refracting telescope is the better telescope for novices. In making your decision, a good source of information is the telescope reviews found on many online telescope websites. But, whatever your choice, select the model that is tailored for new telescope users and one that can be set-up quickly and can be aligned and operates easily.

While a beginner telescope cannot offer custom or state of the art optics, ones from reputable manufacturers are generally quite satisfactory. A word of warning though — It is generally best to avoid "department store" telescopes. These are generally of lower quality and designed for mass production at the expense of quality.

Why You Should Start with a Beginner Telescope

The reasons we suggest that you start on a smaller scale is that you want to avoid the frustration of attempting to use an advance telescope without training and experience. A beginner telescope will afford you with a great number of opportunities to view the stars and planets while you learn the basics of stargazing. Prices for a beginner telescope can be as low as $200 or as high as $2,500, but we would suggest that you look for telescopes in the $300 to $600 price range.

So if your novice astronomer is ready to start on their journey to the stars, take a "right" at the Sea of Tranquility and fly yourself into deep space by visiting the Crab Nebula. Its really easier than you think, thanks to the strong magnification , precision optics and simple operating controls of the beginner telescope .