How we research and score smart telescopes
The sources we use, the seven criteria behind every score, and what our ratings can and cannot tell you.
Our goal is to tell you which smart telescope suits your sky and plans, with evidence you can check yourself.
What our research is, and is not
We are a research site, not a test lab. We do not claim hands-on testing we have not done. When we describe how a telescope performs, we say where that information comes from.
Our sources
- The maker's own documents: manuals, spec sheets, product pages, official sample images, warranty terms and support articles.
- Independent measurements: published lab tests and measurements from reputable reviewers, cited by name.
- Owner experience: patterns in what owners report and share on Cloudy Nights, Reddit, Facebook groups and YouTube, including their published images and exposure details. We quote owners only briefly, credit them and link the original post, and we look for problems that many people report, not single complaints.
- Safety and recall information from regulators where it exists.
We never present an astronomy image as our own. Object photos on the site are credited: maker sample images, owner images shared with permission, or public-domain observatory images (labelled as such, because they are not what a smart telescope shows).
Each specification on SmartTelescopes is stored with a link to its source. When a maker does not publish a number, we show "Not published" instead of guessing.
How scores work
Every telescope gets a score from 0 to 10 for each of these criteria. The overall rating is the weighted average of the criteria we could score:
| Criterion | Weight | What it covers |
|---|---|---|
| Image quality | 25% | Aperture, optics, sensor size and resolution, and how official and owner sample images compare at the same exposure. |
| Versatility | 15% | How well it handles deep sky, planets, the Moon, the Sun and daytime subjects: focal length, filters, mosaic and EQ mode. |
| Ease of use | 15% | Setup time, the app, automatic alignment and focus, and how much an owner has to learn before the first good image. |
| Portability | 10% | Weight, size, battery life and whether it needs mains power or a heavy tripod. |
| Features | 10% | Built-in filters, dew heater, storage, RAW files, wide-angle camera and eyepiece. |
| Reliability | 10% | Warranty length, firmware support and recurring faults reported by owners. |
| Value | 15% | What it offers for its usual price compared with similar models. |
Scores compare telescopes with each other at the time we publish them. As new models arrive, the same telescope can drop in a list without getting worse.
Keeping it current
We review our main pages regularly and when a model, price or firmware changes. The "Updated" date on an article shows the last real content change, not a cosmetic edit.
Corrections
If you spot an error, please tell us. We fix confirmed mistakes promptly and note significant corrections on the page.