Re: Picking a Mark IV Lens

[Chris Albertson <chrisa@wavenet.com>]

Tom Droege wrote:

> For variable star fans, it looks like the equipment costs for finding
> new variable stars might work out to $5 - $20 per star.  Cheap!
> Assuming that we measure 100,000 stars with the Mark IIIs and that
> they cost me about $30,000 and that 1% of the stars measured will be
> variable, then we should get $30 variables with the Mark III program.
> Almost a fixed cost per star found.  I have been doing these estimates
> in various forms since I started.  The numbers have not changed much.
> They get even more constant if you include other costs.

Tom,

I think the Mk III does a little better then that.  We already have
more then twice your 100K stars and have only covered 8 hours of RA.
Just the first three zip files in Michael's ftp archive (B*.ZIP)
together contain about 950,000 detections.  Assume a 50% "keepper
ratio" and Glenn got 50K stars in three nights.  So the MkIII is
operating
down in the $5 to $10 range.

> This just to show that engineers think differently from most
> scientists.  Cost is always a part of engineering decisions.

I can't say how many times my boss has given me a bottom line number
and told me to build a spreadshet that adds up to that total.
The technical engineering term is of course "Design to cost."

   --Chris Albertson             home: chrisa@wavenet.com           
     Redondo Beach, California   work: chris@topdog.logicon.com