The Best Home Telescope

Ok, a telescope isn’t everybody’s idea of luxury, but for me there is nothing better than peering into the universe on a warm, crystal clear night – whilst sipping sangria on a villa balcony in southern Spain!

The perfect astronomical tool for the complete amateur is the Celestron Skyscout which identifies prominent stars and planets for you.

However, the next step up (and what I consider to be the very best in home telescopes) is the Meade LX200 GPS-SMT. This incredible piece of engineering can locate and track 145,000 celestial objects including galaxies, stars, planets and even focus in on individual moon craters. It does this by picking up a GPS fix and then cross referencing this with it’s extensive celestial archive.

Measuring only 94cm long the Meade is extremely compact for the magnification it can generate. In fact Meade claim the 14 inch optics are ‘folded’ using extremely curved mirrors and lenses giving a focal length equivalent to a 3 metre long telescope.

The ease of use and the high magnification to size ratio easily make this intrument the best home telescope in the world.

Retails for £6,000 ($12,000).