A first telescope should do one job well: show you real objects in the sky on the very first night. That means honest optics, a steady mount and a price that leaves room for a couple of decent eyepieces. Anything under $300 that promises 600x magnification and a wobbly plastic tripod is a toy, not a telescope.

The single most important number on the box is aperture, the diameter of the main lens or mirror. A 130mm mirror gathers more than twice the light of a 70mm lens, and that extra light is what turns Saturn from a bright dot into a ringed planet. At this price, aperture beats every other feature.

Our top pick for most beginners is the Sky-Watcher Heritage 130P, a collapsible tabletop Dobsonian with a 130mm mirror for around $200 to $299. It shows the Moon in crisp detail, Jupiter's cloud belts, Saturn's rings and bright star clusters, and it sets up in about a minute on any sturdy table.

If you would rather have the telescope tell you where to point, the Celestron StarSense Explorer LT 114AZ is the pick. Its phone app photographs the sky, matches the star patterns and draws arrows on screen until your target is in the eyepiece. It costs roughly $230 to $260 and removes the hardest part of beginner astronomy: finding anything.

For the tightest budgets, the Celestron Travel Scope 80 and the Gskyer 70mm AZ both sit under $150 and are genuinely usable, provided you accept their limits. They are best on the Moon and bright planets, and they travel well. Whatever you buy, skip any scope that advertises magnification above 250x at this price, and spend the money you save on a moon filter and a red flashlight.

Buy from a specialist astronomy retailer rather than a general marketplace when you can, check the returns policy, and expect to spend your first night on the Moon. It is the brightest, easiest and most rewarding first target, and a good budget scope will show you craters, mountain ranges and shadows you will never forget.