I was considering getting a Monarch myself however I am pressed for money at the moment so couldn't quite afford it.
From my limited readings I know that bigger aperture size plus magnification is great for binoculars (however anything 10x50 or more needs a tripod to get the hand jitters from affecting the image). I have been looking at this bushnell spotting scope for $250. I would like to see the moons of jupiter/saturn and deep sky objects. would this be any good? Its a 15-45x 60mm Bushnell Spotting Scope
The link is to paxtons website however due to IIS URL handling the whole link doesnt work. Here is the shortened version
http://bit.ly/YJV1UA of the url and the actual link is below ( if you use the long url, you will need to copy and paste it verbatim to get to the website)
http://paxtons.com.au/spec_sheet.html?catalog[name]=Bushnell-SpaceMaster-15-45x-60mm-Black-Spotting-Scope-%28%23781818%29-Binoculars-%26-Scopes&catalog[product_guids][0]=880102
Thank you