Need a scope laptop

[themaninthesuitcase]

Possibly in the wrong forum so mods please move if needed.

I am looking into a windows laptop for my setup.  Currently I run on Macs which whilst great it does mean astro software/driver support is a bit sparse.  I have been using bootcamp with Windows 7 for now which does work just fine but I don't fancy leaving my main computer outside unattended.

I don't want to spend a fortune but need something that will be up to the job of managing the mount and camera systems.

I've had two trains of thought:

1. Cheap new laptop.  
2. A refurbished "business class" machine (probably a Dell Latitude)

2 seems like the best idea as I suspect a cheap new machine will be full of bloatware, cheaply built and have an awful battery life ( I will probably be near the mains 99% of the time but I don't want the 1 time I head out to be marred by the laptop)

With a business machine, even a few years old, I should be able to get parts and a new battery to help me out.  I should also have a DELL charger at home somewhere from an old job.

Would a refurbished D630 or E6400 be up to it or am I barking up the wrong tree?

[Psychobilly]

I have happily run a mount and captured images from a  couple of cameras to a Netbook...  it even used to do a better job of USB2 "video" capture from a DMK camera  than one of my full blown laptops... plus  the battery life was very good... That was a Samsung NC10 (Intel Atom based)running XP - I did upgrade the ram to 2GB...

What mount/software and cameras are you going to be  using?

Peter...

[Minimalist__]

I use a Dell Latitude D510 for when my astro sessions and I find it is more than adequate for what I use it for.

Software I have on there includes: Astronomy Photography Tool (APT), Stellarium, Sharpcap, Deepsky Stacker, Registax, Irfanview.

I don't really use the laptop for actually processing my images, mostly I just use it for being able to comfortable control the camera while out in the field. However, this isn't becaue I can't use it for this purpose. I had a period of a couple of months where this was the only laptop I had and it coped fine with doing the stacking etc in DSS and Registax. I also had Photoshop on it and it worked fairly well. Very slow, but got there in the end.

However, now I have another laptop that I use as my main computer and I process images on this machine as it is much faster. However, if I have a lot of images to process, I still use both just to speed things up.

The D510 that I use is a Pentium M processor (single core) with 1Gb RAM, so the dual core that the D630 has would no doubt mean that you could do everything astro-related on it if you wanted.

For me, the real benefit is having a cheap laptop that I don't mind getting a bit abused or wet with condensation that allows me to capture images comfortably and process them if I want to and don't mind the increased processing time. I bought the laptop used for £50, so it's more than worth it at that price in my opinion.

[themaninthesuitcase]

Software wise it will be EQmod and Stellarium to start with, though I will also want to use sharpcap.  I also intend on trying Alignmaster as I can't see polaris in my garden, but might just do a manual drift but my first attempts have gone badly.  I have ordered an XBOX 360 controller dongle but I can't see that sucking down the resources too much.

Going forward I will need PHD and probably the QHY5II drivers (unless I spot a good deal on a used mk1).

I won't be needing to manage the images on this laptop (yet anwyay) as I use Nikon cameras so I have hacked up a bulb controller using an Arduino but the images will remain on the SD.

Processing will all be done on the mac using various tools but I have PS and also DSS, PIPP and Registax all running and working under WINE.

If I can get a laptop for £50 I'd be rather happy! I was hoping to use my current "disposable" windows laptop but it's just not up to the job, it was already well past it when I got it 4 years go.  As Minimalist__ says, they will get abused and I don't fancy treating my Macbook Pro like that!

[Bizibilder]

Have a look on Morgan Computers (usual disclaimer)   http://www.morgancomputers.co.uk/default.asp   They usually have some good lappy's and netbooks at sensible prices.  Most are second user but some are brand new/factory reconditioned.

[Gina]

Most of my PC have come from Morgans and I've been very satisfied.  Using one now and have a laptop for my warm room.  A year or two old but good quality with Win 7.

[themaninthesuitcase]

Thanks, I'll take a look there. Hopefully there will be something suitably bargainous. The last few weeks have been rather spendy.

Sent from my B1-A71 using Tapatalk

[Scott]

I use a little ASUS netbook for cdc, eqmod, backyardeos, and xbox controller, I also run a laptop Noah bought second hand for phd. I just seem to have less problems (hanging) when I run phd on a separate machine.

All processing is done on the pc.

Oh, the netbook gets about 4-4.5 hrs on the battery, which is almost never....I'm usually at home