GPS plugin for Celestron Nexstar SE8 Price ripoff

[Bigwings]

I just wonder sometimes why prices are STUPID. I looked at the bolt on unit for my telescope which would tell the scope EXACTLY where it is. Well my scope knows that because I told it. I can get the Long Lat off the internet or my Aviation GPS. The scope remembers location even if it cant remember the time. So I have to tell my scope the time each session... a few clicks on the handset. Time is given from my "atomic" clock so its accurate (Cost £5 on Fleabay).

The bolt on GPS unit for the SE8 is £260 this is more than my Garmin Pilot 3 with built in Jeppson Database and moving map display and avionics stuff aint cheap. A box which just outputs location and time to another module at that price is a RIPOFF.

How can we astronomers stop this sort of thing and get fair prices?

Clear Skies

Mike

[beetlejuice]

They're stupid because there are people who will pay. It's called market forces. I have to agree though astrokit pricing is bizarre -especially Celestron. D Hinds quotes a new price of a C6 XLT OTA as £750. Come again? I bought mine recently as part of a package with a CG5 brand new for £350. Flogged the mount for £100, so the scope cost £250 - bargain. Even so, £260 for a basic GPS is OTT. My GPS talking speed camera detector cost less than £100 with free database updates. This is Britain, though - known as 'Treasure island' as we are stupid enough to pay way over the odds for just about everything.

[Bigwings]

Could be a nice little earner in here for someone. How about one of you creative folk (are you listening PsycoBilly and friends) making a cable to patch Garmin output to the GPS input port on Celestron scopes. I would pay a reasonable price for that.

[arad85]

The bolt on GPS unit for the SE8 is £260 this is more than my Garmin Pilot 3 with built in Jeppson Database and moving map display and avionics stuff aint cheap. A box which just outputs location and time to another module at that price is a RIPOFF.

How can we astronomers stop this sort of thing and get fair prices?

Clear Skies

Mike

There's two forces at work here - firstly, import taxes that I would guess D Hinds will get stung for and secondly, it is a relatively small market so there is R&D to recoup. I was just looking at dual mounting bars and they are around £100 for "just a bit of metal", but that's what they cost given they will sell in relatively small numbers...

[Beyond_Vision]

At the end of the day it's just an NMEA compatible serial port GPS unit like the many you can buy for less than £50.

Regards

Kevin

[beetlejuice]

How about this? StarGPS or this or Meade scopes http://www.botsky.com/ and it's British.

[dark knight]

I have a hp hand held pda, with tom tom software and an external gps unit, could any of this be put to use, as for anything else its pretty obsolete???

[beamish]

SteveL got a small NMEA GPS from fleabay for less than 30.00 !! Can't find the post /link though.

I've taken my GPS co-ordinates from TomTom in the garden-close enough, and when I've taken the scope/mount away done the same.

Now of course with Eqmod the s/w takes the time from the puta too

[dark knight]

Could I just plug the gps bit into the mount, or is the pda required as the interface and if so how do you connect them up?

I've just downloaded eqmod, wow looks a bit technical for me. Is there just a more basic interface?

[Leegsi]

One of these: Bluetooth GPS Receiver for Laptop PDA smart NMEA-0183 on eBay, also, GPS Systems, GPS, Consumer Electronics (end time 12-Jun-09 17:36:00 BST) ?

[Reggie]

I bought my holux sirfstarIII gps mouse for £5 It worked really nice with nexgps and now works great with EQMod.