Astronomy

I'm planning to go to a rural spot that has a Bortle class 3 night sky around Southern California. Can anyone recommend a beginner friendly telescope with decent magnification for around $200? I'm not interested in using an accompanying smart phone app to go with it either. I'd like to see nebulae and galaxies the most. Thank you.

I've got clear skies where I'm at, and I'm ready to try and cross some things off my observation list.

Some targets I'm planning on trying to hit:

• M79 (this one's been a real PITA, tried about five times and finally just saw a fuzzy little cloud last time I looked)
• NGC 2419: I think this one's also going to be a huge PITA to starhop to, but I'm up to the challenge.
• Rosette Nebula
• M108
• M97: M108 and M97 seem like they shouldn't be too hard to starhop to, I guess we'll find out.
• M105: tried to find the Leo triplet once or twice before and got nowhere, but I was on more of a time crunch. I'm hoping with a slower pace and Leo being higher in the sky, I'll be able to pin it down.
• I always like to peek at Jupiter, and I'll probably snag a look at Trapezium while I can.

Known Conditions:

• 12" 1520mm f/5 manual dob
• low mag wide aperture binoculars
• predicted clear skies
• ClearDarkSky says Bortle 6 but I think it's closer to 5. In either case, not great, but I've still managed to catch some faint fuzzies from here.
• I'm going to be using a combination of prepping with Stellarium and a star chart to try and augment my star-hopping. I'll be using an 8x50 RACI to jump from bright naked-eye targets to less visible ones, and then a 2x Barlow/30mm wide field eyepiece to nudge onto target.

Anybody else planning any observing? What's your list look like?