Yeah, I agree that binoculars would be the best choice to begin learning about the sky. Cloudy Nights is a good place for good binocular advice. For $200 to $250, you can get a pretty good pair these days. Check out the Oberwerk binoculars over at Bigbinoculars.com. Oberwerk has a variety of good quality binoculars at a fair price. I would not recommend that you start out with one of the giant binoculars, as these need a heavy duty tripod and have a smaller field of view compared to a mid sized pair. I think that a good quality 10x60 would be an excellent starting point, and they would be great for terrestrial viewing as well.