Best Telescope Brands 2023: Unleash the Power of the Night Sky!

A quick look at the number of different types of telescopes on the market today will offer a bewildering choice of different brands. Which are the top telescope brands to buy, and why? In this article, I’ll guide you on points such as reputation, reliability, customer service, and other business information and reviews out there that should help you make a better choice.

The best telescope brands include Celestron, Meade Instruments, Orion, Explore Scientific, Sky-Watcher, and Vixen. These five global brands sell the most reliable telescopes and accessories that any amateur astronomer or astrophotographer could want. Any one of these brands of telescope is a smart choice.

One thing to note here is that many of these telescope manufacturers and brands sell telescopes with or without a mount. The mount is by far the most important piece of equipment for an astrophotographer, as it needs to be able to track the movement of the stars accurately. For observation, the mount can, in many cases, be adjusted manually as the object moves across the sky.

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The Best Telescope Brands: Factors to Consider

The companies that I have chosen to feature as the top telescope brands are all recognised global brands. This is no surprise because it is often stated that when a brand is global, it is held in higher regard by consumers (Johannson and Ronkainen, 2005).

Which brands are Most Popular?

There are many places we can look to determine this, but I’d also like to add my own independent research in order to give an unbiased opinion. If a website has an affiliation with any of the major telescope brands, or if they actually sell them, their opinion may not be totally trustworthy or independent.

For this reason, I will try to establish, through a number of means, which are the most popular telescope brands you should consider, whether you plan to use them for observing or astrophotography.

The Brands We Will Consider

I have decided to go with some of the biggest and most popular telescope brands and then evaluate and compare them according to the research I have done online. Here is the list of the top brands I will be looking at:

• Celestron
• Meade Instruments
• Orion
• Explore Scientific
• Sky-Watcher
• Vixen

Please note: I am not affiliated with any of these brands, and the research I have carried out is, as far as possible, completely independent.

Methodology and Results

I have used the following criteria to research the best telescope brands:

• The number of mentions on the CloudyNights Forum
• The business information available for each telescope brand
• Reviews of the different brands available online
• Amazon sales information
• My own experience

I have mostly used online sources and, where possible, have tried to verify them. As far as I am aware, all information is correct as of January 2023. If you have any other relevant information or wish to correct something, please contact me here.

Number of mentions on CloudyNights Forum

I have been actively contributing to the CloudyNights forum for a few years now and have found it to be very helpful and full of knowledgeable astrophotographers and astronomers, from beginner to advanced and beyond. I think the advice given is trustworthy and unbiased. This is why I chose this forum, although there are others I could have chosen, such as Stargazerslounge etc.

If a brand is mentioned in the forums many times, I think it shows an interest in that company’s products, good or bad. However, if a brand is hardly discussed at all, this will clearly show it is not so popular amongst those discussing astronomy or astrophotography.

To find the number of mentions of each telescope brand in the CloudyNights forum, I went to Google.com and typed the following search string:

site:cloudynights.com “Celestron”

The results of this search were the mentions of the brand name on the site CloudyNights.com. I took the figure at the top of the search results, where it gives the total number of results found. Note that in most cases the above search gives a good approximate result, but in some cases, such as Orion, the brand name could be confused with mentions of the Orion spacecraft, the Orion Nebula, and/ or other mentions, so I added the extra term telescope without quotation marks:

site:cloudynights.com “Meade” telescope

This obviously gave a more accurate result but it still included a few spurious results so I did not count this search for Orion but did for Meade, etc.

Here are the results:

The results shown above roughly agree that the most widely mentioned brand is Celestron, while Explore Scientific is the least discussed or mentioned brand.

Comparing the Business Information of Each Company

Why did I include this? I think that the health of the business is a major factor in how strong a brand is. Also, as Thomson et al (2010) claim, several factors, such as how employees are treated by the company, will strengthen the brand and improve customer service.

This is also related to how well the company is performing in business. For this reason, I have included a company’s revenue and the change in the number of employees; if this is rising, that is a good sign for business and also a sign that employees are happier as the company is attracting new workers. Sources of this information included Zippia.com, Glassdoor.com, Indeed.com, Zoominfo.com, Rocketreach.co, and Growjo.com. Because of the variation in numbers, an average was taken as the comparison figure.

Celestron and Skywatcher have the highest yearly revenue at 24 and 23 million dollars, respectively.

The smallest of the brands in terms of revenue is Vixen. Now let’s take a look at the number of employees working for each brand, how happy they are at work, and how productive they are.

The Number of Employees

Above, we can see the huge difference in the number of employees. Meade Instruments is the largest employer with 100 employees, just beating Celestron. The smallest employer here is Vixen Optics, with only 9 employees.

If we look at the change in the workforce over the last year, we see that Celestron experienced 11% growth, Orion 6%, and Meade 3%, the remaining brands had no growth in this area.

Another good indicator of how motivated and successful a company is is the average amount earned per employee. In this respect, Sky-Watcher appears to be the leader, with over half a million dollars per employee. Vixen has done very well here too, as they have 444,000 dollars per employee. The least productive workers appear to be those at Explore Scientific, who average just 42,000 dollars per employee.

Which of These Companies is the Oldest?

Here is an infographic that shows when each of the chosen brands was established and where:

So, from the above, we can see that the longest-running brand is Vixen established in 1949, yet they remain the smallest of these brands in terms of the number of employees and revenue. The youngest brand is Explore Scientific, having been established as recently as 2008. Perhaps this is one reason why they have the lowest productivity rating per employee.

Comparing Reviews

I compared the Trustpilot ranking out of five for these five telescope brands. Next, I collected information from Amazon.com. I took the top-selling telescope model of each brand and noted the total number of reviews and the percentage of 5-star and 1-star reviews plus the overall average. My reasoning for this is that the reviews for the top-selling model for each brand are representative of the general opinions customers on Amazon have of the brand. There is a significant difference in the brands in terms of different kinds of telescopes and cost but I did not consider this in this research.

The conclusions we can draw from the above sales information taken from the Amazon.com website and searching for best-selling telescopes, including reviews, further reveal the dominance of Celestron.

The two brands that have the most popular reflector telescope products, including accessories as well as telescopes, are Celestron and Orion, with 13 places each in the top 50 sales.

For refractor telescope product sales on Amazon.com, Celestron has 10 products in the top 50, while Orion has only 3. None of the other brands appeared in my search.

Celestron also seems to get the most reviews, perhaps because it has more sales. A whopping 12,618 reviews were given for Celestron’s top-selling model. Meade came in second with 1,919 reviews, and Orion was third with 649.

Next, let’s consider how positive these reviews were for each brand. Conclusions on this should be taken with a pinch of salt, though, as the reviews are for a particular model in each case, and some brands had many times fewer reviews overall. Compare Celestron’s 12 thousand reviews with only 41 for Explore Scientific’s top model.

Also, note I am not mentioning the exact model for which reviews were given; rather, I am taking this as a general indication of which are the best telescope brands according to customer reviews.

The best telescope brands with the most positive reviews were Skywatcher (76% were 5-star reviews) and Orion with 72%. Although Orion had more than ten times the number of reviews, they had only 2% one-star reviews, whereas Skywatcher had 4%. A small difference, but it may be significant.

Explore Scientific had the largest percentage of 1-star reviews (16%).

Finally, we come to the overall rating out of 5 given for each of these top brand models.

Celestron and Orion were given 4.5 stars, Meade Instruments 4.3, and Sky-Watcher 4.0. The lowest rating was given to Explore Scientific, with 3.9 stars.

My Own Experience

As an amateur astrophotographer with several years of experience, I have a good idea of what’s out there in the market and which are the best telescope brands. I can also comment on the telescope I regularly use which is a popular model of Celestron telescope, (the 130slt).

As Celestron is the biggest and perhaps most well-known of telescope brands, my opinion adds little to the large amount of data above but personally, I have had a very positive experience with the telescope I bought and used with its GOTO mount for about a year or so until I outgrew it. I upgraded to an equatorial mount but still use the telescope tube mounted on my newer Ioptron CEM 26 EQ mount. I am quite happy with this reflector telescope and the images it gives me.

This is the telescope I first used:

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And here is a video giving a personal review based on experience. This video guides you through the most important things you need to know about buying a telescope and which might be the best for you. Watch it!

According to the Results, How Do the Brands Stack Up?

The table above lists which of the five best telescope brands was first in each of the categories I researched. So, in order, here is the final ranking of these brands according to the results I got:

1. Celestron
2. Orion and Sky-watcher
3. Meade and Vixen
4. Explore Scientific

Conclusion

A brand is only one aspect of choosing a telescope that is right for you. In truth, some may question how important the value of the brand is for someone looking to buy a telescope. I do believe, though, that buying a good brand is worth thinking about because you will be able to consult others who are using the same equipment and who may have advice on using it that you may benefit from. The ease of getting parts and accessories is another feature of buying a good brand.

Another advantage of going with an established brand is the probability that you can find information about the product easily and discuss how best to use the equipment with others on online forums. Youtube is also a good source of information and reviews of new equipment produced by bigger brands.

Before buying any telescope, make sure to do some research. What kind of telescope do you want? How do you plan to use it? Check out these pages to learn more:

• Astrography telescopes – what are they and what are the best models?
• The best telescope for astrophotography – make the right decision. What is the best telescope for beginners? What is the best telescope for deep space?
• Dobsonian vs. Cassegrain: which is best and why?
• What is the best telescope for viewing planets and galaxies?

I’m sure that the pages I have written above will give you tons of helpful information and help you choose which brand and model you want to get.

If you want to upgrade or sell your equipment, it will be much easier if you have an item manufactured by a major brand. So this is another consideration.

Another reason why you should think carefully about which brand you choose is the customer service in case things go wrong or you need a replacement.

Sometimes, if a company has problems, it can go out of business, leaving customers in the lurch. The likelihood of one of the best telescope brands going out of business is less than that of a weaker one.

When thinking of which of the best telescope brands is right for you, first think of your needs and how you intend to use your telescope. What kind of setup do you intend to have, and how often will you use it? What is your level of ability, and what specifications do you need? Are you going to use the telescope for visual observation or astrophotography?

Your budget may also influence your brand choice, as some brands cost more than others. But the brand also represents trust, and in particular, customer service is something that is always a factor to consider.

I hope that the discussion here has helped make your choice of telescope brand easier. Of course, before any purchase of astronomy equipment, research is always required, and I certainly hope that this website can help you out with that too.

References

Thomson, K., de Chernatony, L., Arganbright, L., Kahn, S. (2010). The Buy-In Benchmark: How Staff Understanding and Commitment Impact Brand and Business Performance. Journal of Marketing Management. Vol.15 (8), 819-835. Link to article.

Johannson and Ronkainen. (2005). The Esteem of Global Brands. Journal of Brand Management 12, 339-354. Link to article.