What can I actually see with a beginner telescope?

With a 6-8 inch telescope under reasonably dark skies: Saturn's rings and the Cassini Division, Jupiter's cloud bands and four Galilean moons, Mars surface features during opposition, lunar craters as small as 1 mile wide, the Orion Nebula in vivid detail, the Andromeda Galaxy's core, star clusters like the Pleiades and Hercules Cluster, and dozens of other deep-sky objects. From city locations, planets and the Moon remain impressive but deep-sky objects are diminished by light pollution.

Why should I avoid cheap department store telescopes?

Department store telescopes advertise high magnification (500x, 750x) but have tiny apertures (60-70mm). High magnification on a small aperture produces dim, blurry images — you cannot magnify detail that the aperture cannot resolve. Flimsy tripods shake at every touch. Poor eyepieces produce distorted images. The experience is so frustrating that many people abandon astronomy entirely. A $200 Dobsonian from an astronomy brand outperforms a $300 department store telescope dramatically.

Best Beginner Telescopes 2026