Just remember that anything higher power than 10x are hard to hand-hold, and you will need some sort of mount for longer viewing. Larger than 50mm lenses are often heavier too, and this makes it harder to hold for any length of time.
10x50's are a great place to start, very versatile, easy to hold and good light gathering. If you have young eyes you could look at up to a 7mm exit pupil, but 5mm (as in 10x50's) works very well.
The Pentax WCP2 should do the job well too. Lots of brands available and most are good quality at that price point. Don't go for any cheap red-lens ones!
Best to check out a good camera/telescope store, see what feels good in the hand and look through them. Check for good colour rendition, bright images (some have better coatings and allow more light through), and the bigger the "sweet spot" where everything is sharp the better. (All binos tend to tail off at the edge of the field, but some are sharper across a wider field than others. All tend to have some lateral colour towards the edges as well.) Check how easy they are to focus, and general quality of the build. Watch out for plastic bits!
All the best,
Dean
(PS: the Astro-Physics ones (supposedly hand-picked (by AP) and re-badged "BA8" generic binos) currently for sale in the Classies:
http://www.iceinspace.com.au/forum/s...d.php?t=123750 would be very good, but they are also very big and heavy, not at all suitable for hand-holding... depends what you want.)
