National Geographic 70/900

The National Geographic 70/900 is a proper classic refractor in the style you probably imagined as a kid - a long tube on a mount, no mirrors to maintain, and straightforward optical design. For £99, you're getting genuine optics with reach: the 900mm focal length gives a very tight field of view, which is exactly what you want for viewing the Moon and planets in crisp detail. When it works, it works well, and plenty of people have had genuinely good first nights with this scope.

Before you buy, though, read on. This telescope has a mixed reputation, and there are real patterns in user feedback worth understanding. The biggest issue is assembly - some guides and instruction photos are vague, and the tripod assembly can be fiddly. If you're methodical and don't mind spending an hour on setup, you'll be fine. If you expect 'just pop it open and look', you may feel frustrated. A few owners have received units with missing parts or quality-control issues (bent eyepieces, poor optical alignment), so inspect everything carefully when it arrives and don't be shy about returns if needed.

The equatorial mount, as mentioned, has a learning curve - you'll need to learn how to polar align it to track objects properly. That said, once you know which way is north and point it at Polaris, tracking becomes almost hands-free. It's a genuinely useful skill to learn early on, not a flaw in the telescope itself.

This scope shines for the Moon and bright planets like Jupiter and Saturn (at the right magnifications, you'll see cloud bands and rings clearly). Deep-sky objects are beyond its reach unless you're in very dark skies - the 70mm aperture gathers light, but not a huge amount. You'll also need a genuinely dark location to do it justice; from light-polluted suburbs, you're essentially looking at the Moon and planets.

Storage and portability: the long tube is ungainly in a small garden shed or flat, and it's not portable in the way a short refractor is. Think about where you'll keep it before ordering. If you have a decent storage cupboard, a garden hut, or a balcony, you're sorted. Finally, make sure you have somewhere genuinely dark to use it - even 10 or 15 minutes from home makes a real difference to what you'll see.