As someone who has brought a bit of gear since I started three or four years ago I can truly say that with that budget your best bet is an eight or ten inch Dobsonian telescope.
It may not be the scope that you will eventually aspire to but it is the one that will show you things and inspire you to keep you going. Just about anything else at that price range will be a visual disappointment. Later on an $699 refractor might be the basis for a start in astro-photography but until you can afford a mount and a camera it will not give you much.
Even once you have maybe got into astro-photography you will still pull out the dob for an easy setup quick look, it will never become a "wish I hadn't bothered with that" investment.
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