The Moon is one celestial object that never fails to impress when seen in a telescope. It’s our nearest neighbor in space — big, bright, beautifully bleak, and just a quarter million miles away. That’s fewer miles than you may have ridden in cars, and 100 times closer than our next nearest major astronomical neighbor (Venus) ever gets.

This makes the Moon a wonderful target for even the most humble astronomical instrument. You can spot and name at least a dozen of its surface features with the unaided eye. Binoculars show scores more, and a telescope can keep you busy on the Moon forever.

Of course, just looking and not knowing what you’re seeing will grow old pretty fast. As in all of astronomy, the rewards come from recognizing and understanding what you find, and from planning neat things to seek out. Let’s get started.