Joe Bauman wrote:

Don't you think CCD prices will drop drastically?

I asked Alan Hale (president of Celestron) that when he was in town a while back. He said to look for prices to stay sort of stable but capabilities to go way up. Patrick

Patrick, I agree with Alan (who may have a tad more insight than I, after all) - prices will stay in the current ranges but the capabilities increase. I don't believe the small companies involved in amateur CCDs would be able to stay in business if the price per unit goes down. Volume won't make up the difference - these aren't MP3 players. The capability increases seem to come in fits and starts, rather than in a sort of continuous improvement. It would seem that once a design is finalized, they have to let production run for a while to get a return on their development effort. As for expense, the camera is just a part of the total cost - even excluding the telescope and mount. Filter wheel, AO7, pier, upgraded wedge, software, software, software, etc. It do add up.

I asked Alan Hale (president of Celestron) that when he was in town a while back. He said to look for prices to stay sort of stable but capabilities to go way up.

Patrick

Jim Sgt

Of course prices will drop as the technology matures and the customer base grows. However, the market for imagers is considerably smaller than that for computers or video games, so manufacturers will never be making millions of them and ecconomies of scale won't be as drastic as a mainstream consumer item. But if you keep waiting for prices to drop, you'll never buy a system. You gotta start sooner or later. C. --- Joe Bauman <bau@desnews.com> wrote:

Don't you think CCD prices will drop drastically? I can't help but feel they're high now just like PCs were when they first came out, but will go down as technology and production improve. My first PC was an IBM that cost around $5,000 about 1984, with "spin-writer" printer and a monochrome monitor. It didn't even have a hard drive. It's worthless now except as a museum piece. In a few years it was far outclassed by computers that were much less pricy. -- Joe

Joe Bauman science & military reporter Deseret News bau@desnews.com (801) 237-2169

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