How to View the Moon With a Telescope

Find the perfect spot. Wait until close to dark to set up. Give yourself enough daylight to see what you are doing. You want to be in an area where there are no streetlights or trees obstructing your view. This may be in a backyard, or you may have to travel somewhere to reach these conditions.

Set up your telescope. Read your instruction manual. You must balance and mount the telescope on the tripod. When you have it set up, don’t forget to take off the lens cap. Face it in the direction of the moon.

Get acquainted with the sky. There are so many things to look at in our sky you almost need a program to find it all (see resource for a planetarium program).

Focus in. To focus your telescope, the moon is the perfect place to start. You will have a knob to help focus your objects. The moon is easy to locate. You will know exactly what you are looking at, because the moon is so big and bright. It will also have plenty of craters and valleys to inspect. To also help you locate objects, you may want to use your finder scope.Magnification. Start low and work your way up. If the magnification is too high you stand a chance of making your images very blurry. Every telescope is different so you will have to play with it to get it right (also check manual for focusing).

Viewing. After looking at the moon you will notice how much light the moon gives off. You may not even be able to see well away from your telescope for a bit after looking at the moon at night. Imagine what the sun could do to your vision.