Hi Simon,
I agree with Simon_rl in that a manual dobsonian will be easier to use starting off. I would get at least an 8 inch dob which has decent light gathering power
A second hand 8 inch dob can be grabbed for the same amount ~$250. Nothing really to go wrong with it. - up and down, left and right
You will be able to see the bands of Jupiter, rings of Saturn, Orion Nebula, brighter Globular clusters and open clusters.
I would recommend getting a laser collimator to help with aligning the primary and secondary mirror, which is easy to do once your learn how.
Unless you have experience with an eq, especially a manual one, I wouldn't recommend as a first scope unless you have definite plans to do astrophotography in which it gets expensive quickly for the computerised eq mounts.
Hope it helps,
Mel
