Best home telescopes - When choosing a home telescope, you cannot go for the finest, and advanced telescopes, which are quite hard to use and pricey as well.

Instead, the best home telescopes can be used by individuals of all ages and expertise.

Even a beginner backyard astronomer should be able to operate it.

So, to help you with selecting the right one, we have listed two user-friendly, inexpensive, and high-quality telescopes that would make excellent options for your family’s use;

Best Home Telescopes -  Our Top Picks

Orion StarBlast II 4.5 Equatorial Reflector Telescope

When looking for a beginner-friendly telescope that your whole family could use, Orion StarBlast II 4.5 Equatorial Reflector is our first recommendation. You can easily set its height for your kids using the tripod’s height-adjustment knob.

With a thick 114 mm objective lens and 4.5 inches wide aperture, it gathers a huge amount of light from stars, allowing you to observe their inspiring collections.

Being a reflector telescope, it would help you view fainter objects and galaxies.

A focal length of 450 mm makes the views brighter, allowing your family to observe celestials better. Also, you get two Sirius Plossl eyepieces to change the magnification power of your telescope. Thus, you can select whether you need 18x or 45x magnification.

Its EQ-1 equatorial telescope mount ensures that the telescope stays steady and aligned in the right direction.

The best thing about the product is its affordable price. The addition of several accessories (like a smartphone camera adapter, EZ Finder II reflex sight, and an adjustable tripod) makes it an even better deal.

Also, this telescope comes with two information booklets (MoonMap 260 and DeepMap 600). These are great for learning the basics of astronomy.

This reflector telescope is available at Amazon for $199.99.

Pros

• Larger aperture, brighter views
• Multiple eyepieces included
• Various useful accessories

Cons

• Shaky tripod

Celestron - AstroMaster 70AZ Telescope

Being a lightweight and compact telescope, Celestron AstroMaster 70AZ is one of our picks for the best home telescopes. The assembled telescope weighs only 5 kg. Hence, you can easily store it at home and take it to your balcony, rooftop, or backyard to observe the skyline.

It contains an objective lens of 70mm thickness and a 2.76'' aperture, capturing a good amount of light from the horizon.

This aperture size correlates with its 900 mm focal length, and the resulting focal ratio (f/13) is highly suitable for viewing the moon and planets.

It also comes with two eyepieces (10 mm and 20 mm), allowing you to adjust telescope magnification power to 45x or 90x. Also, these lenses are fully coated so no distorted views to bore your family!

 It has an Altazimuth mount to keep the telescope steady when panning for Astrovideography. Using the associated pan-handle, you can easily set up and point towards heavenly items.

For height adjustment, an adjustable steel tripod comes with the product.

This product comes only for $125.99 from Amazon.

Pros

• Lightweight and portable
• Clear optics
• Good for lunar viewing

Cons

• Not suitable for deep space observations

Conclusion

When looking for the best home telescopes, we suggest the Orion StarBlast II 4.5 Equatorial Reflector due to its fine optics, useful accessories, and great price point. It allows your family to discover planets, distant galaxies, and nebulas.

Celestron AstroMaster 70AZ is our second best bet - offering closer and more detailed views of the moon and other planets, it's a great tool for exploring lunar features as a backyard astronomer.

We hope this helps you choose the one that best fits your needs!