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There’s a huge range of telescopes at Walmart so scoping out the right one for you can be a little trickier than first thought. Despite this, we’ve scoped out the very best that Walmart has to offer and put it in this handy guide. We’ve even included some buying advice at the bottom of this page to help you with your search.
Walmart is home to some of the best telescope deals out there and they even stock some of the best telescopes available on the market. Although there are a lot of telescopes at Walmart, and a lot of telescope deals too, it’s hard to look past the sheer number of Celestron telescope deals available.
Despite this, if you know what make of telescope you normally like, and there aren’t any on sale at Walmart, you can check out our brand specific guides for Sky-Watcher telescope deals, Meade telescope deals and Orion telescope deals.
If you’re looking for some great telescopes at a discount, you can always check out our guides for the best budget telescopes under $500 and the best telescopes for kids, some of which you can pick up from Walmart. We’ve also included some buying advice to give those who need it a little guidance. However, if you want to check out the best telescopes at Walmart and the top deals, read our round-up below.
Telescopes at Walmart: Best dealsBuying advice
(Image credit: Celestron)When it comes to buying a telescope you need to consider two main factors: Your budget and what you’re wanting to view. There are three main types of telescopes out there, and figuring out what you want to view will help you decide what type of telescope you will need. There are refractors, reflectors and catadioptric telescopes.
For beginners, refractor telescopes are often a popular choice due to their easy to maintain and use style. They’re often mounted to alt-azimuth mounts so they’re straightforward to use and the mounts themselves are easy to manufacture so the price tends to be cost-effective too. They’re best used for focussing on specific targets like moons and planets due to the fact that they’re good for showing high-magnified and high-contrast images.
Reflector telescopes tend to have larger apertures and are better for low-magnification targets like nebulas and galaxies. You get two types of reflector telescope: Dobsonians and Newtonians, although there’s some crossover between these. In brief, though, Dobsonians are easier to maintain and often found attached to the alt-azimuth mount. Newtonians are more commonly affixed to equatorial mounts, which allow you to follow the rotation of the night sky more accurately, but they require more upkeep.
Finally, catadioptric telescopes fix issues found in both of the above types of scope – such as chromatic aberration and the coma effect – and they are typically equipped with a GoTo system. These systems are essentially mini computers that align your telescope to particular night sky objects. You get two types of catadioptrics, the Schmidt-Cassegrain and the Maksutov-Cassegrain. As a general rule, the Maksutov-Cassegrain is better for viewing planets, while the Schmidt-Cassegrain models are a little more versatile and feature bigger apertures, so they’re preferred by astrophotographers.
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Ruth has worked across both print and online media for five years, contributing to national newspaper titles and popular tech sites. She has held a number of journalist roles alongside more senior editorial positions, and was formerly acting as a commissioning editor for Space.com until 2022.
