Re: Celestron Sky Scout


"plawler" <plawler@xxxxxxxxx> wrote in message
news:1149559733.585687.156790@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
Roger Hamlett wrote:
Hm. There are off the shelf standard GPS's now available for under
$250,
which include magnetic sensor, barometer, CF interface, and full colour
displays. I'm afraid the price of this sort of unit, has plummeted, and
while $400, would have looked a 'good' price only perhaps 18 months
ago,
it now looks very high.

I still think you are not appreciating what this unit does. It is not
just an "off the shelf" standard GPS. If you compare it to the talking
trip GPS units (e.g., Magellan, Garmin, TomTomGo, etc.) you will find
most of those priced between $400-800.

This doesn't contain a road database, but it does contain a star
database... and it has to do direction and tilt as well as GPS, so you
can point it at a star, and it will identify that star, or you can ask
for an object and it will guide you to the object. Clearly more
sophisticated than the $250 GPS unit.
Not true.
I understand exactly what the unit does, and exactly the electronics
involved (I design this sort of thing). The '$250 GPS', has significantly
more complexity in it, the unit I was looking at (one of a number on the
market now), has three axis accelerometer, which is perfectly capable of
giving the tilt measurement, one axis on the magnetic sensor (the Sky
scout does not need/use two axes on the magnetics), and adds a barometric
interface, which the Sky scout does not have. The code needed for the sky
navigation, is not as complex as you seem to think. The memory sze, and
processing power being quoted for the Sky scout, is sgnificantly less than
for the unit I was looking at. 'Simple' GPS's, do not have so much
complexity in them, but are now well under $100...

You may feel it it too high a price for you, and that's fine, but it is
certainly not too expensive for what it does, or out of line with other
similar products (especially when there really aren't any).
I'm afraid it is. The comparison that makes most sense, is to 'aviation'
GPS's, which also command a similar 'premier' price, for a relatively
small marketplace. However on these, the database comprises a large amount
of this cost, since there are significant 'risks' associated with faults
in this, and the manufacturers try to avoid this potentially hitting them,
by buying in an approved database from a third party. Even the car systems
often do this. The same is not true
for the Sky scout.

Best Wishes



.

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