Bay Area Reefers

Or are you looking for something to look at girls?

Not sure about prices today because well for obvious reasons I don't look into buying a telescope

Things you don't want to skimp on is your base(tripod) though, as that will be the difference between a wobbly camera shot and one rock solid clear one.

Obviously you'll want one with a motor tracking as well.

Unfortunately I'm not sure about hookups to put a camera to it, you'll need to unscrew you lens however (I think ).

$1000 might be a bit of a low end telescope/system though, and usually upgrades are not really possible.

Neat feature of course is a star-guide attachment, so when you want to take a picture of that Messier object you can't see with your naked eye, you can have it point there. Also a GPS tracker is great too because then it knows where you are and you don't have to do much setup at all, but no way you're getting that on your budget. Eye pieces if you want to look with your eye... yeah it can get pricey in a hurry!

Some to do some googling over however (again I don't know about hooking a camera up, so you'll have to do that research on your own), Celestron NexStar series, Meade has some good ones (too many to list, quite a few are 1000+ though), SkyQuest Dobsonians are usually a lot of telescope for your money (but a different mount). Depending upon what you want to see, might want to aim for 8" size at a minimum though which would really limit you.

thanks mike. That's a good starting point. I'll hunt around and report back

Just to follow up, because I actually READ your post this time (last time I was in an office hour and was distracted every 2 minutes while typing/reading).

The ability to mount my camera to it (likely by way of proper adapters)
This is probably the only real 'upgrade' you can do, as each camera will probably be specific as far as how to mount to it

Computer controlled (seems fairly common now to help locate stuff)
Already mentioned, the main ones typically have this almost as a standard (at least when you're in the $500+ range)

Pretty decent "brightness"
The wider the telescope the brighter objects will be, also assists with better resolution, however with a camera you can cheat and simply leave a long exposure to get a "brighter" image. Magnification shouldn't be an issue, longer = more magnification, but you can always add better eye pieces if you want that aspect of it.

If it can actively track for long exposure photography, even better
Definitely worth the money for this, with an equatorial mount it's fairly straight forward to manually move it with a single turn of a knob, with an azimuthal mount you have to adjust two directions, and if you view just about anything with any magnification it'll be out of view within 20 seconds easily, which doesn't make for happy relaxing viewing (whether you're taking pictures or just staring at the stars)

Don't know much about telescopes other then what my father has. Like Mikes says $1000 will be very low end. My father has an 8in telescope used that he was able to get from a telescope nerd in socal for well over 2k; it does some cool things with tracking and pictures and what not. very worth it if you have the slightest interest IMO.

Tony - the best way is to go find the local astronomy club and see if they have any loaner scopes. Go talk to those folks about equipment and they can set you up right.

Some nice decent scopes out there - dobs imo are the biggest bang for your buck (you need to move it around).

The ability to mount my camera to it (likely by way of proper adapters) - yes unfortunately prosumer dlsr still are not in the same caliber as the CCD cameras out there which need to be cooled - more cooling less noise i.e. not grainy
Computer controlled (seems fairly common now to help locate stuff) - GoTo can be great - but can be used a used as a bad crutch usually adds some $$$ to overall price
Pretty decent "brightness" - The bigger the mirror the "brighter" it gets
If it can actively track for long exposure photography, even better - this is where it starts getting mighty expensive (equatorial mounts can be cheap chinese or cnc machined take two years to build - $300 or $8K)
$1000 or less including tripod etc to startup. If there is some upgrade path, even better Astronomy clubs can be great source for info (like this one) whether it's which dark sites to go to, which equipment to buy, etc -> and you might find someone who is willing to sell used equipment too!

Places to stay away from - Astromart, Craigslist (only worth it if someone is willing to go with you who knows what you're looking at, and Ebay.
Good etailers to check out - Orion Telescopes, Oceanside Photo & Telescope, Astronomics, and Adorama

I've been "very productive at work" today and ...*cough* only spent 2 minutes reading on telescopes*cough*

I think the best advice I have read which reflects what you said was while reading up on the orion 8 and 10" dobs

Right now, I am debating between an 8" with motorized "go to" pointing
http://www.telescope.com/control/product/~category_id=newfall2009/~pcate...
and a 10" that is computer assisted but manually aligned.
http://www.telescope.com/control/telescopes/dobsonian-telescopes/orion-s...
It's a beast, but I'm tempted to go with the 10". My wife might have a hard time with it being she is only 5'2"

A match made in heaven.
(excuse the pun)

lol. Right on You're a genius!

Size does matter in this case. The extra money can be spent on an eyepiece.

I have a 12.5" dob and I can pretty good through it (I'm 5' 3") - Truth is no one looks at anything directly at zenith (12:00 position)