A rapid celestial body recognition method and device and a telescope, the recognition method comprising: acquiring the information of a celestial body to be recognized (S1), the information of the celestial body comprising a target angle coordinate; adjusting the angle coordinate of a recognition device according to the information of the target celestial body (S2); taking a first starry sky image at a current angle coordinate using the recognition device (S3); searching in a corresponding starry sky database to obtain a second starry sky image according to the target angle coordinate and the current angle of view of the recognition device (S4); and comparing the first starry sky image to the second starry sky image, and recognizing the celestial body to be recognized in the first starry sky image according to the comparison result (S5). The telescope using the method does not need to be calibrated after being turned on, and the starry sky database is utilized to simulate the current telescope. A celestial body may be quickly found by comparing an actually taken starry sky image to a simulated starry sky image. Compared with the means for finding a celestial body by composition, the speed and accuracy of celestial body recognition in the described method are greatly improved.