One of the things that makes our
moon such a wonderful target for amateur astronomy is that the moon can support the widest range of magnifications of any astronomical object. For planets, you won't see surface detail at typical
binocular magnifications, but you will see plenty of surface detail on the moon with those same binocular magnifications, even with the low magnification of a
7x50 astronomy binocular. At the other end of things, if you use too much on many faint galaxies and nebulae, they often go invisible, since you lose image brightness as magnification increases. The moon is so bright, though, that you can crank your
telescope up for all its worth, up to the point where image quality starts to suffer and keep seeing more detail on the moon. All in all, the moon has something for everyone. It's a great object for a
binocular, a small
telescope or a large
telescope. No other astronomical object can claim that.
