Hey Brent, As a low-cost, general-purpose scope, I think it's hard to beat the Celestron 102 OTA. I have one and for general viewing, I think it's great. Yes, smaller aperture and less chromatically corrected than you'd get with a reflector (see my reasoning on this below). I don't know about getting any kind of decent automated mount along with a scope for $1K, but then if you go for an inexpensive OTA like the C102, the iOptron ZEQ25GT mount is available for around $850 and has gotten rave reviews and would certainly carry a larger scope also, if he went with a larger OTA later. (That puts the balance way in favor of the mount rather than the scope, at the budget specified.) The EQ mount requires a fair amount of setup and may be more trouble than it's worth--I think a person who mostly wanted to visually observe might do better with an automated alt-az mount (simpler conceptually). A lower-cost option for an EQ mount would be something like the iOptron Smart EQ Pro (~$500) or, for non-automated, the Astro-Tech Voyager Alt-Az (~$300). The iOptron Mini-tower 2 is a computerized Alt-Az and is ~$900. I have an iOptron iEQ45 and one thing I can tell you is they have superb customer support. If he wanted to go a bit higher in price, the Celestron 6" Advanced VX on a go-to mount (again EQ, though) is ~$1,300. You might be able to get the OTA by itself and a different mount. Why am I suggesting refractors? Just for simplicity's sake. Not having to fuss with collimation and so on is a big plus, IMO. I think you can see an awful lot (and very enjoyably) with a C 102, but it's got a degree of chromatic aberration and a relatively small aperture; the 6" would also have a degree of CA but you'd spend a long time looking before you got to things you couldn't see w/ that aperture. (I've never used the C 6".) Frankly, I don't think a bit of CA bothers novices as much as it does us purists, but that's just my take. The best scope, as a friend once chided me, is not the one with biggest aperture for the budget, but the one you will use the most. For a novice, I'd recommend sticking with something simple and inexpensive at first. I'd also be inclined to buy from Cloudy Nights classified or Astromart. You can get a good deal on things that have been well cared-for but cost a substantial amount less than something bought new. You can also get answers about what kind of observing the person enjoyed with the scope. Good luck. That's a tricky problem! John