Burgeoning astronomy interest

I am just back from watching Mars for several hours, though only just outside the back door of my apartment building and with the naked eye. I doubt my interest in astronomy will ever become that as the level of someone like Bob Thompson, but I wouldn't mind snagging a low cost telescope so that all these celestial events that are technically visible to the naked eye, but would look even more impressive to the magnified eye, do. The lunar eclipse. The many meteor showers. Mars being visible, which will not happen again for something like 200 hundred years. all of these have been visible to the naked eye, but all of them have been less impressive without a telescope. The moon was hard to distinguish while covered. The meteor shower was not visible due to a full moon. Mars was simply a bright, orange coloured star in the sky to the eye.