Astronomy starts with observations of the night sky. You can do many of these without a telescope. We learned a lot about the universe just by looking at the simple motions that are visible in a day, or a month, or a year, periodic and cyclic motions involved in the Earth's rotation, the Earth's orbit of the Sun, and the Moon's orbit of the Earth. Using positional astronomy, we can understand these phenomenon which relate to the Earth, Moon, Sun orbital system. This leads to the phases of the Moon, and also to the phenomenon of eclipses. The phenomena of the night sky is the best way to get an introduction to astronomy because you don't need complicated equipment.