These websites will help you find a club in your area: B.

Definitely stay away from any department store telescopes as they just tend to frustrate as they are difficult and unwieldy. The xt8 is nice and simple to use, just point and look
If the xt8 is a little too pricey the xt6 is even less, and still quite nice Oren

I recognize many of the people who post here on telescopes, and “really good telescopes” go from $1,000 to $25,000 in the amateur range.

What you want is a reasonably good quality beginner’s telescope.

I’m going to refer you to three different places. Use their 800 numbers and tell them you want a good quality beginners scope. These are telescope stores. They will listen to what you want and make suggestions. The two leading contenders are the Orion Star Blast 4.5″ and the Orion XT4.5″.

These are small, portable, very solid, and come with a couple of eyepieces. You’re looking at the $200 neighborhood.

There’s the Celestron Firstscope, but really, there’s a point at which a low price point really sacrifices too much. You won’t get much of a view of Jupiter from a Firstscope, but you’ll do pretty good with an XT4.5. The celestron has a nice little video though. Educational on certain terms, such as focal length and what eyepieces are, etc., and soothing New Age music. They are correct that the Dobsonian style mount (which the Orion scopes also are) is the best, most stable inexpensive mount out there. But I would bypass the $100 options. The beginning of usable equipment that will help build enthusiasm for the sky is $200 and over. when you go lower than that, the view is dim, the mount tends to get unstable, the scope gets to be difficult to point and use.

I will say, however, that if $200 seems like too much that might want to contact other people who know this friend and see if they will go in on it with you. Four people could do it for $50 or $60 each. Maybe his parents?

hope that helps,

GN gn