Well the optics sometimes costs more than the telescope sometimes.... my telescope was $1200 used and the optics (depending on how much zoom you want) ended up costing almost another $1000.
You have the autostar system though and thats a great computer as it basically shows you a computerised guided tour of the sky at night and as a novice this is pretty good as i didnt know anything about it and this taught me alot.
I'm more than sure that this will be a good xmas present
