Learning how to use a telescope for the first time? You’re not alone in feeling slightly overwhelmed. If your experience is anything like mine, you’ve opened the box, stared at an alarming number of parts, glanced at the instruction manual (which was clearly translated from Mandarin via Google Translate), and wondered whether you’ve made a terrible mistake.
You haven’t. Setup is simpler than it looks, and I promise you’ll be looking at the Moon within the hour. Let’s walk through it step by step.
Step 1: Unbox During Daylight
This sounds obvious, but do not attempt your first setup in the dark. Fumbling with unfamiliar parts while holding a red torch between your teeth is not the relaxing hobby experience you signed up for.
Lay everything out on a table during the day. Identify the main components: the optical tube (the telescope itself), the mount (tripod or Dobsonian base), the eyepieces, and the finderscope (the small scope or red dot sight attached to the main tube). Most telescopes come with a 25mm eyepiece (low magnification) and a 10mm (higher magnification). Start with the 25mm — it gives you a wider field of view, making it much easier to find things.
Step 2: Assemble the Mount First
Whether you have a tripod or a Dobsonian base, build the mount before attaching the telescope tube. For a tripod, extend the legs to a comfortable standing height, tighten everything firmly, and check that it’s level and stable on the ground. Wobbly ground means wobbly views — flagstones or a patio are better than soft grass.
For a Dobsonian, place the base on flat ground and set the tube into the cradle. That’s essentially it. One of the many reasons I’m a fan of Dobs.
Step 3: Attach and Align the Finderscope
The finderscope is your aiming device. Looking through the main telescope at low magnification, you might see a patch of sky about the size of a 10p coin held at arm’s length. Finding anything by sweeping that tiny circle across the sky is tedious. The finderscope gives you a wider view to aim with.
To align it, point the main telescope at something distant during the day — a chimney pot, a church spire, anything at least a few hundred metres away. Centre that object in the main eyepiece. Then, without moving the telescope, adjust the finderscope’s alignment screws until the same object is centred in the finderscope. Now they’re synchronised — whatever’s centred in the finderscope will be in the main eyepiece’s field of view.
This alignment needs checking each session, as it can drift slightly. It takes thirty seconds once you know how.
How to Use a Telescope: Start with the Moon
Your first target should always be the Moon. It’s bright, it’s obvious, and it’s spectacular through any telescope. Point the finderscope at the Moon, centre it, look through the main eyepiece, and prepare to have your expectations exceeded.
Use the 25mm eyepiece first. You’ll see the full or near-full disc with craters, mountain ranges, and the dark “seas” (maria) visible in sharp detail. The terminator line — the boundary between the lit and dark portions — is where the shadows make craters pop dramatically. Slowly turn the focuser knob until the image is as sharp as you can get it.
Once you’ve soaked that in, switch to the 10mm eyepiece for a closer view. You’ll see individual craters within craters, ridges, and the long rays of ejecta spreading from impact sites. The Moon is genuinely awe-inspiring through a telescope, even a modest one.
Step 5: Finding Planets
Planets are the next easy win. Jupiter and Saturn are visible to the naked eye as bright, steady points of light (stars twinkle, planets don’t). Use a stargazing app to identify which bright “star” is actually a planet, then point your finderscope at it.
Jupiter will show as a small disc with two darker cloud bands across its middle. On a good night, you might spot the Great Red Spot. Four tiny dots lined up near it are the Galilean moons — Io, Europa, Ganymede, and Callisto. Their positions change from night to night, which is fascinating once you start tracking them.
Saturn will take your breath away. Even in a budget telescope, the rings are clearly visible. The first time you see them and realise you’re looking at an actual planet with actual rings, a billion miles away in real time — it doesn’t get old.
Step 6: Tracking Objects
Earth rotates, which means everything in the sky drifts slowly westward. At higher magnifications, objects will slide out of your field of view in a minute or two. You need to gently nudge the telescope to follow them.
On an alt-az mount or Dobsonian, this means small manual pushes. On an equatorial mount, you turn the right ascension (RA) slow-motion cable. If your equatorial mount is properly polar aligned, you only need to turn one axis to track — that’s the whole point of the design.
Don’t stress about perfect tracking as a beginner. A few nudges every minute is fine for visual observing.
Step 7: Venturing Into Deep Sky
Once you’re comfortable finding the Moon and planets, try some brighter deep-sky objects. The What Can You See guide covers this in detail, but good starting targets include the Orion Nebula (visible in winter, a fuzzy patch in Orion’s sword), the Pleiades star cluster (a gorgeous group of blue-white stars), and the Andromeda Galaxy (a faint oval smudge, but it’s a galaxy 2.5 million light years away, so cut it some slack).
Use the 25mm eyepiece for deep-sky objects — they’re faint and benefit from the wider, brighter view. Dark skies help enormously. If you can, get away from urban light pollution. Even a short drive makes a difference.
For help identifying what’s visible tonight, Stellarium Web is a free online planetarium you can use right in your browser.
Common Beginner Mistakes
Using too much magnification. High-power eyepieces make everything dimmer and wobblier. Start low, always.
Not letting your eyes adapt. It takes 20+ minutes for your eyes to fully adapt to darkness. Avoid checking your phone (or use a red screen filter).
Expecting Hubble images. Through a backyard telescope, galaxies look like faint smudges, nebulae look like ghostly wisps, and planets are small bright discs. It’s not less impressive than photographs — it’s differently impressive. You’re seeing actual photons that have travelled cosmic distances. A photograph can’t give you that.
Giving up after one cloudy week. UK weather is adversarial. Stick with it. The clear nights will come, and they’ll be worth the wait.
Learning how to use a telescope gets easier with every session. The most common mistake when figuring out how to use a telescope is trying to do too much on the first night — start simple and build from there.
Clear skies.
Daniel is a self-taught astronomy hobbyist based in the north of England. He writes honest telescope guides, gear reviews, and stargazing advice — and remembers what it's like to not know a refractor from a reflector.