For stargazers on a budget, why not start off your astronomical adventures with something simple yet effective, such as the Porta A80Mf from the company Vixen.

The A80Mf is in Vixen's entry-level refractive range - refractive because it uses lenses rather than a reflective telescope, which uses mirrors. Refractive telescopes such as the A80Mf can also be used to peer at terrestrial objects as the image can be flipped to its proper orientation through the use of a prismatic eyepiece. A reflective telescope, on the other hand, presents its image up-side-down and reversed, making terrestrial gazing confusing, to say the least.

The A80Mf also sports an altazimuth mount, which means it can be freely pivoted vertically and horizontally. This makes it easy to zero-in on grounded objects, but makes it a bit harder to track stellar objects, which trace an arc across the sky as a result of the Earth's rotation.

The AM80f isn't motorised and has no tracking computer, but it's a good way to start star-gazing.