Press
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Writing about telescopes, smart telescopes or astrophotography? Here is who I am, how to quote a score, and the whole leaderboard as open data.
Short bio
Damon Scotting is The Telescope Man.
Damon Scotting is The Telescope Man, an astronomy creator and telescope reviewer. A physics graduate (BSc Hons, Physics with Astrophysics and Cosmology, Loughborough University) and qualified teacher, he taught physics in secondary schools before becoming an astronomy creator.
He is a contributing writer for BBC Sky at Night Magazine, the author of 42 Wonders of Our Night Sky, and his photograph of the galaxy M100 with the dwarf planet Ceres was Highly Commended in Astronomy Photographer of the Year 2024, run by Royal Observatory Greenwich. More than 750,000 people follow his astronomy channels on YouTube, Instagram and TikTok, and he has reviewed more than 140 telescopes, mounts, cameras, filters and accessories hands-on, each scored out of 100.
Logos and photos
Downloads coming soonUntil the downloads are up, email for logos or photos and I will send them.
How to cite a score
Quote the score with its date, and link to the review.
The ZWO AM5N scored 71 out of 100 in The Telescope Man's review by Damon Scotting (thetelescopeman.com, updated 24 September 2026).
- Give the score as a number out of 100, with "The Telescope Man" or "Damon Scotting" as the source.
- Include the review's date, as scores can change when a product is re-tested. The review page always has the current figure.
- Link to the review itself, at thetelescopeman.com/reviews/ followed by the product's name.
- Ranks change as products are added, so a rank ("number one of its kind") needs a date too.
How scores are set is on The Telescope Man Standard, and how the site is funded is on the disclosure page.
The scores dataset
Every score on the leaderboard in one file, free to reuse under CC BY 4.0.
One row per product: 164 products across seven categories, as of 2 October 2026. The file is plain CSV in UTF-8, so it opens in any spreadsheet.
slug, name, brand, category, score, value_for_money, build_quality, ease_of_use, feature_set, compatibility, review_url
Scores and criteria are out of 100. Criteria columns are blank where a product has no criteria ratings yet, and the review link is blank for the few products whose full review page is not yet up.
The dataset is licensed under Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International. You may copy, chart, remix and publish it, commercially or not, as long as you credit it, for example: "Scores: The Telescope Man (thetelescopeman.com), CC BY 4.0". The licence covers the data only, not the review text, photographs or videos.
Press enquiries by email: [email protected].