Laptop Spec?

[Pint Of Stellar]

Shortly I'll be picking up my first scope (apologies in advance for the impending clouds   ) and will start the AP journey. I'm wondering if my macbook spec is up to the job though for both driving the image capturing and post processing (I have used this laptop with CS4 already loaded for single DSLR image processing) so if someone more knowledgable could check this out and comment that would be appreciated.

Cheers

Early 2008 Macbook

Processor  2.4 GHz Intel Core 2 Duo

Memory  4 GB 667 MHz DDR2 SDRAM

[riklaunim]

Not every astro hardware is supported on OSX

[Pint Of Stellar]

Not every astro hardware is supported on OSX

aha - hadn't thought of that - it will be a Celstron CGEM mount (and a C925 XLT)

[Pint Of Stellar]

and additionally I'll probably be picking up an ED80 too

[Pint Of Stellar]

Am now wondering if I should budget for a basic windows based laptop for outside use as this seems to open up a wider number of options for camera control too?

[riklaunim]

You get ASCOM on Windows so support for anything needed for DS imaging.

[davefrance]

I'd be looking for 64bit, 8GB Ram min. You may not be able to use it all with some astro programs at the moment but the time will come.

[Pint Of Stellar]

I'd be looking for 64bit, 8GB Ram min. You may not be able to use it all with some astro programs at the moment but the time will come.

Would that be to do all the 'processing"?

What could I get away with to just power the mount/camera rig if I were to process on the macbook?

[Bukko]

Hi,

the Macbook spec will be fine - depending on how many subs you stack, etc. (100 subs at 30MB each is 3GB and I am sure you have the equivalent of the Windows swap file). I use PI for aligning and stacking subs on a Core 2 Duo, at 2GHz. It is OK, just a bit slow. I did try it on a single core Celeron 1.86 laptop; it was even slower, but still got there.

However, not being a Mac user, I do not know if you will have a set of applications for all the functions. I know PI is available for a Mac and would be pretty sure much of the rest of the software you need is available too, as I remember seeing posts from Mac users who image.

I guess it would be easy for you to try it. If you run into some unsurmountable problem, then consider getting a Windows spec machine, but I would doubt you should need it.

Gordon.

[HumptyMoo]

I'm not a mac user and don't really get along with apple but processing wise you are most likely fine if you don't care about waiting a few mins or so to complete on larger stuff. If you are feeling like its a bit tardy and you don't want to spend on a new laptop, my first suggestion would be to look at upgrading your hard drive to a Solid State Drive (SSD), they can be picked up fairly cheaply in lower capacities but make a massive performance difference on older hardware, particularly where swapfile usage is concerned (Contents of memory being written to disk when physical RAM is fully used, like an overflow).

Only thing I hesitate on is cloning your existing drive to an SSD, there is a number of programs out there that will do it, however, I have only used dos and windows based ones so can't recommend in your case. It's worth a serious look though imo.

[Pint Of Stellar]

Thanks guys (in a non gender specific way  ) I am kind of thinking a PC based laptop for the outdoor driving and sub collecting then using the mac (already has CS4 etc loaded) for image processing - in this case what sort of PC laptop would be good enough to do the job as this is all it would be doing?

[HumptyMoo]

I'd say any lower end ACER, if it comes with windows 7 just be sure you have at least 2 gig of ram, although you can get away with less, if you optimise the services and stuff. The main thing is the method of which you wish to transfer data, if it's USB 2.0 then any laptop this decade will most likely do, if it's USB 3.0, look for models in the last year or so.

[HumptyMoo]

Which is kind of pointless on reflection if you are going to transfer to the mac May as well just do the lot with the mac. Saves a "hop" point which will simply be time consumed getting data from A to B. B being as slow as your mac book is anyway...or less fast, depending on your viewpoint

Or, get a new laptop that will do everything, to be fair even the lower end ACER's will probably process faster than your old mac...such is the information age.

[davefrance]

I stand by what I said earlier. if you can afford it, futureproof yourself otherwise in a year or so you will be buying another one and in the end will cost you more.

[HumptyMoo]

I stand by what I said earlier. if you can afford it, futureproof yourself otherwise in a year or so you will be buying another one and in the end will cost you more.

Although I understand where you are coming from, you cannot future proof yourself in computing, you can mitigate to some degree. The mac has the capability to do what is needed, and for way less than another Laptop and indeed way way less than for one that will see you good for another 3 to 4 years, you can make a cheap change to the existing that will speed things up quite considerably.

That way, when the software gets to the point of needing 8gb of ram the cheaper laptops will probably already be offering 16gb or more.

Granted that will always be the case so you could perpetually wait for the next best thing indefinitely, but, in this case I see an option to upgrade cheaply (if it is even needed) and then have some time to play with until there is no further doubt that you need to make a larger commitment.

As stated though, this is just my opinion, Mr. Dave above is equally qualified with his

[davefrance]

Although I understand where you are coming from, you cannot future proof yourself in computing, you can mitigate to some degree. The mac has the capability to do what is needed, and for way less than another Laptop and indeed way way less than for one that will see you good for another 3 to 4 years, you can make a cheap change to the existing that will speed things up quite considerably.

That way, when the software gets to the point of needing 8gb of ram the cheaper laptops will probably already be offering 16gb or more.

Granted that will always be the case so you could perpetually wait for the next best thing indefinitely, but, in this case I see an option to upgrade cheaply (if it is even needed) and then have some time to play with until there is no further doubt that you need to make a larger commitment.

As stated though, this is just my opinion, Mr. Dave above is equally qualified with his

Ok I accept that future proof was perhaps a bad choice of words and can accept your argument as perfectly valid. I just don't, personally, believe in make do and mend. Hopefully Pint of Stellar can take something from both our points of view (and the other contributors) and make his decision.

[HumptyMoo]

Absolutely, believe it or not I actually adopt your way of thinking personally, I custom build my personal PC's with a mind to it lasting 5-6 years, IT is after all my profession and hobby. For most people though, that extra cost for hardware is not as relevant as it won't be fully utilised much of the time anyway.