My 11yo is asking for a telescope for Christmas, and this stuff is outside of my experience. Do the Celestron that Thujone linked or the Meade from Armybrat seem like reasonable places to start?
Thujone, does the control app you were talking about require the wifi module? Is there anything like that for the Meade which would make the initial learning curve less steep?
Also, it looks like the Meade uses GPS to align automatically, correct? I suppose that would be one less step than the Celestron, but is it that big a deal?
Anyone ever try the Celestron smartphone adapter, and would that work for either of these? It would be fun for him to snap some basic pictures without the complexity of full-on astrophotography.
Just trying to figure out if one of these is better than the other for a kid starting out, and which will reward his curiosity rather than crush it. Or if there are any other recommendations, I'd love to hear them.