The view in your telescope may be either right-side up (left column) or upside down (right column); this is no big deal. And it may be either correct (top row) or mirror-imaged (bottom row), which is more of a problem. Here are the four possible combinations.

Sky & Telescope diagram.

Yes, that happens. Or, in some telescopes, the Moon looks right-side up but mirror-reversed (flipped left to right). Don’t worry, nothing is broken — this is perfectly normal. Since there’s no “up” or “down” in space, most stargazers just accept this optical quirkiness and don’t let it bother them. And, besides, you’ve seen this kind of thing before. After all, when you look at yourself in a mirror, isn’t the image staring back at you flipped left-right?

As a general rule, if your telescope’s optics have an even number of reflections (as is the case for Newtonian reflectors, like a Dobsonian), you’ll get an upside-down view. Scopes that have an odd number of reflections (refractors or compound telescopes, used with a 90° star diagonal) give a mirror-reversed view. If you’re not sure which case applies to you, just aim your scope at the Moon or a building and compare the view with what you see in binoculars or with your eyes alone. You’ll figure out right away what’s going on.