Re: [APML] OT: New 35mm Astro CCD camera

[Michael Barber <barber@sbig.com>]

At 12:08 AM 7/17/03 +0300, you wrote:
>
>the kai11000 chip can be had for about 3k in singles. About the same cost 
>as a class 1 kaf3200. You can buy kaf3200 cameras from a number of 
>suppliers, but there's currently just one that makes a kai11000 camera - 
>so they can sell it with a very different margin.

This is not the case.  One can't just swap CCDs.  You can't fit an 11000
CCD into an ST-10 sized camera.  The 11000 requires a much different camera
body than the 3200.  It is 44mm diagonal chip compared to about 18mm for
the 3200.  This requires that everything else be larger.  Optical window,
filter wheel, filters, cooling capacity, power requirements, etc.  We also
added cost compared to the ST-10 by building in the filter wheel and making
it a part of the camera rather than a $1000 accessory.  The bottom line is
that these cameras cost more not because we just hiked up the price but
because they are much more expensive to make.  I'd say that our margins are
smaller on the 11000 camera than on an ST-10 and this doesn't even begin to
take into account the development costs (which are essentially recovered by
now with the ST-10).  

Regards,
Michael Barber
SBIG
    

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