hi dan
i have gotten this artifact 5 times before and it always took 4000 (i actually thought it was 4500) . i checked the wiki just to make sure..it said 4000....i was at over 17000 as im not cashing in at less the 16000 to try to get the melter artifact.....i got a star chart....but this time it took 10000 artifact points.....has the number of artifact points changed for this item? does it take more artifact points, the better the planet or did i simply get overcharged?..thanks.

Looks like they take 10000 now, which is far too expensive IMO. You have a better chance of finding a good planet using one, but I don't think that justifies the cost. Over and over I end up spending 10k RPs for Average Toxics, I've yet to get a "good" planet from star charts.

I thought 4000 was too expensive, now I absolutely dread getting them.

I'd say don't use them until you are spending over 200k research points for a scanning upgrade then. At that point, the benefit will outweigh the cost.