Thoughts on which imaging rigs to concentrate on

[Gina]

1 hour ago, hughgilhespie said:

Gina,

It's a con - pure and simple!

Do a search on Beelink software repairs.

Regards, Hugh

Thanks Hugh   Rather thought so    Oh well only £12 out of pocket - could have been much worse.

Edited November 6, 2016 by Gina

[Gina]

The sky has pretty much cleared again tonight and I'm collecting yet more OIII images of the Heart and Soul.  Not exactly brilliant yet but I think the sky is still improving.  The DSOs are just passing by my weather station wind instruments - the dark shadow in the bottom right of the image.

[Gina]

I see more cloud approaching!

[Gina]

Image has improved but still passing by the weather station stuff...

[Gina]

Amazingly that clouds has not come over but actually seems to had decreased

[ChrisLX200]

I'm watching those clouds (well OK, not those clouds) here, it's going to be one of those frustrating nights where the clear gap between clouds is 5 minutes less than your sub length - whatever it might be.

ChrisH

[Gina]

I'm cloud watching too and another lot has reared it's ugly head from the east  

[Gina]

This is not looking good

[Gina]

31 minutes ago, ChrisLX200 said:

I'm watching those clouds (well OK, not those clouds) here, it's going to be one of those frustrating nights where the clear gap between clouds is 5 minutes less than your sub length - whatever it might be.

ChrisH

My sub length is 60s alias one minute   But I need hundreds of them for a good result!

[ChrisLX200]

1 minute ago, Gina said:

My sub length is 60s alias one minute   But I need hundreds of them for a good result!

I reckon you can really benefit from conditions like these, those short gaps are useful to you   It's definitely not a night to be sat outside though - too flippin cold!

ChrisH

[Gina]

It certainly is!!  It's bitter!  A minute or so to open the observatory roof was enough for me!   Everything else I can do remotely from the comfort of my settee in the warm   Here's a pretty good sub of rather a few.

[Gina]

Another ASC shot with cloud!

[Gina]

Aaarrrggghh

[ChrisLX200]

Same here... but supposed to improve after midnight. Trouble is there's a danger of a spot of rain (or even snow here) so too risky leaving everything outside.

ChrisH

[Gina]

Ah yes   No rain forecast for here and it's expected to clear later.

[Gina]

I might motorise my roof later but it's very quick to open or close manually including the secure holding down clamps and fold down window.  Manual is more reliable but remotely operated would be nice

Edited November 7, 2016 by Gina

[Gina]

It has cleared and now getting quite good data

[Gina]

[Gina]

As the nights lengthen, the volume of data is increasing and getting more and more tricky to handle - no! I'm not grumbling about getting too much imaging time but certain things have to change.  Nor am I grumbling about this new camera!  But I need to change the way I work and have to upgrade certain equipment to cater for it.  During a full night's session which lasts up to 14 hours on a good night there are 840 minutes and with 60s subs that's 840 subs of 32MB or nearly 27GB.

For the way I work, I have to be very careful as to what I keep - data terabytes can soon mount up!  For the equipment - more data storage and processing space and faster data link from astro computer to processing computer.  I found yesterday evening that the SSD I 'm using for my PixInsight processing filled up before all the data was processed and that was with 332 subs.  I shall be adding a 500GB SSD to my data processing machine.  The problem is that PI makes a couple of extra versions of the data and keeps them.  viz. calibrated then registered.  Not grumbling at PI either - excellent software

[Horwig]

Data volume is getting to be a problem everywhere Gina. I work in TV post production, and a client recently wanted advice about a shoot he was planning, explaining that he wanted six cameras recording for up to five hours a day for three days, three cameras at 100Mb/s and three at nearly 350Mb/s.

You work out the amount of data he was going to have to store, (I estimated about 10Terrabytes) and naturally make two copies for safety. He was aghast, he had just not considered the extra disks he was going to have to buy.

And that was for a single programme, what would happen if he was offered a series?

 

Looking forwards to seeing colour in these 

Keep up the good work

Huw

[Davey-T]

Can you capture to an external USB drive ?

I use a 1tb USB3 external drive for solar and on a good summers day can nearly fill it with 16bit SER videos.

Dave

[RayD]

10 minutes ago, Davey-T said:

Can you capture to an external USB drive ?

I use a 1tb USB3 external drive for solar and on a good summers day can nearly fill it with 16bit SER videos.

Dave

This is what I've just started doing using the new little tiny Samsung USB-C SSD drives, then offloading it all on to my Q-NAP NAS at a later stage.

[Gina]

Thanks for your replies

Indeed I could use an external USB3 drive - the mini PC box I shall be using has 3 USB 3 ports.  That is certainly a possibility.

[Gina]

Went for it and ordered :- Seagate Expansion 2TB USB 3.0 Portable 2.5 inch External Hard Drive  Seems good value and arriving tomorrow

[Horwig]

That Seagate drive is good, highly recommended.

Having both my Obsy and Home PCs networked, My imaging data is saved directly to the home PC over the network, so my obsy PC has a tiny( read very cheap) hard drive.

H