I have looked through many scopes. looking for a good low light scopes is totally different than daytime. the German tech is light years ahead of the rest of us in this field, as they do a lot of night hunting. So Euro Glass would fit your needs better.
I have compared Leupold, Nightforce, Vortex, Zeiss and Nikon to one another through the times.. And everyone my see it a little different, to me the 56mm nightforces was better in low light than the 50mm Leupold at 18x in low light. I have compared my old 1994 6.5-20x50mm Leupold to my 2011 4-18x40mm Nikon and both was about even in low light at 18x. Then got out the Ziess Conquest HD5 5-25x50 Varmint rec and it was like looking through night vision compared to the other scopes..
Mine at the time was listed at $1150, got a demo model for $950.
These are good scopes, not the best Glass Zeiss has, but better than 99% of the top Glass from Japan
For day time clarity, they are great, Not sure if any better than top Leupolds, Nightforces, vortexs etc etc
I bought a Sightron 8-32x56mm for my 284 last year and it has Superb Clarity
For what you want I would get a 3x15x50mm Zeiss Hd5. They ;list for $1199, but here is a demo model for $899 (very close to your budget)
eurooptic dot com has demo models for $899 as of right now