Our expert thinks this portable Celestron telescope will delight beginners and younger stargazers

Small telescopes have really come on leaps and bounds in recent years.

There was a time when refractors with apertures smaller than 4 inches were seldom to be recommended, but manufacturers have been pushing the capabilities of smaller apertures ever further, with optical coatings and high quality, mass-produced optics helping to eke out every little bit of capability from these pocket-sized instruments.

While still aperture-limited — a smaller aperture makes less light received, which makes faint objects harder to see and details harder to resolve — a good small telescope can excel at the things it can do.

This include showing fabulous views of the whole moon, revealing the phases of Mercury and Venus, showing surface features on Mars when the Red Planet is at a close opposition, tracking the Galilean moons of Jupiter , splitting double stars, showcasing open star clusters and revealing the very brightest deep-sky objects, including the Orion Nebula and the Andromeda Galaxy.

The Celestron Moon Mission Travel-scope 70 portable telescope is a re-skin of the plain Celestron Travel-scope 70, and is labelled as a lunar telescope.

The moon is what it excels at, which is particularly handy in the year that humans went back to the moon for the first time since 1972, drumming up all kinds of excitement about our nearest neighbor.

Its affordable price and simplicity of use further increase its attraction for children.

How many young astronomers will find a passion for space after being excited by the Artemis II mission and then seeing the moon for themselves through the eyepiece of this easy-to-use telescope? Celestron Moon Mission Travel-scope 70 review Celestron Moon Mission Travel-scope 70: Design The Celestron Moon Mission Travel Scope 70 comes with everything you need to get started. (Image credit: Gemma Lavender) Quick and simple set-up Comes with all the accessories to get started Lightweight and portable Inside the box we found the telescope tube, which is just 17 inches (44 centimeters) long, kept within a protective travel bag.

Also present were the two eyepieces (10mm and 20mm), a 3x Barlow lens, a moon filter, a star diagonal, a finderscope with crosshairs and a useful moon map poster.

There are even free download options for the well-known Starry Night planetarium software and Celestron’s Sky Portal mobile app.

All in all, it’s a complete package for anyone wanting to get started in astronomy.

The only thing it doesn’t come with is guaranteed clear nights! Everything is lightweight, so there is no risk of children hurting themselves if they drop anything (though one would advise not dropping the telescope tube!).

No tools are required for assembly, which is an additional advantage when aiming a telescope at children.