My 6yo son received a Celestron Powerseeker 60AZ telescope this past Christmas, and we’ve since been able to take it out for test drives as we’ve traveled through various states — most notably, in southern California’s Joshua Tree National Park, which has been designated a silver-tier International Dark Sky Park.

Now, I’ll start by saying that this is not the most powerful telescope on the market by any means, but as an aspiring young stargarzer, he’s been having a blast using it to look at the moon and the occasional star. We haven’t yet tried to spot any planets like Saturn or Jupiter with it yet, but from everything I’ve read about this particular telescope, they will be small-but-recognizable when we do.

I think this is a great first telescope for kids, and I have a feeling we will be upgrading someday now that he’s had a taste of the cosmic. It comes with a 20mm (35X) eyepiece, a 4mm (175X) eyepiece, and a 3X Barlow lens that can be combined with either of the first two for increased magnification. One thing I recommend is keeping a 5/16″ Allen wrench in the box with the telescope because the “neck” that holds the telescope sometimes gets loose and needs to be re-tightened from underneath.

You can get your own Powerseeker 60AZ for $50 on Amazon.