Laptop for astro work

[mik]

Hi ive been on the lookout for a laptop for a while to get into this astroimaging lark so a visit to PC world yesterday just for a usb extension lead i might add saw me walking out with a laptop(If your not interested in Vista look away now) :laughing3:

Well this is what i ended up with spec as follows.

Advent (PC/Currys own brand cheapie) 12" widescreen (nice n compact)

Intel Core 2 Duo 1.66ghz

Ram 2 GB

HDD 160GB

3 x USB

Firewire

Windows Vista Home Premium all for £399

Ok first job was to connect to internet and do total update including Vista sp1

total time about 1 hour.

Software loaded and working fine as follows

Philips spc900nc webcam with vista drivers

Adobe Photoshop CS2

Celestron Neximage version of Amcap

Stellarium

Virtual Moon Atlas

WcCtrl webcam control utility

Registax 4

Philips VLounge

Deep sky stacker (loaded ok but not tested)

iMerge

Last but not least K3CCD i was only able to get this working fully with the use of WcCtrl running as well but i also had this problem on XP as well so i won't blame Vista for this.

So far all is stable and running fine with no issues and no non responding programs so far Vista is running very fast no hang ups or conflicts so perhaps service pack 1 has ironed out a lot of issues.

This machine is dedicated to astro work and will not be used for web browsing and e.mail etc.

So far so good touch wood, hope this helps anyone looking for a astro dedicated lappy.

Mick.