Laptops for imaging and processing

[Luna-tic]

What is the community recommendation for a good laptop to use for astronomy? My primary uses will be imaging, photo processing and storage, but also for any application needed for viewing and general astronomy. I want flexibility in features, and upgradability. I suppose processing ability and speed are foremost, with memory and storage sufficient to support everything else. I'm not all that computer savvy, so when you start throwing arcane terms around, please explain them.  What processor is best, how fast should it be, how much RAM is best without being marginal, what peripheral connections should I have (I know I want USB 3.0, and an HDMI port). I also prefer a digital hard drive instead of a disc drive. I want to be able to use a couple of stacking programs, Lightroom and Photoshop, as well as my dedicated camera software (Nikon View NX-I). I also plan to use the laptop as a viewing monitor, and later to drive the telescope. I won't say, 'cost is no object', but what is a reasonable price for a system that can do what I want?

[LightBucket]

If you are using for processing then you will need a lot of power, i5 minimum and 8gb ram, with SSD drive, or better still i7 with 16gb ram and SSD drive....just my two pence worth....

oh and a few USB 3.0 ports would help....

[Alien 13]

Alienware 

Alan

P.S. Any "gaming" laptop will have the i5 or i7 processor with at least 8Gb of RAM, a standard hard drve with a second SSD is nice also.

[laser_jock99]

• My preffered option is a 'low end' (i.e. cheap) laptop or netbook for guiding and scope control (my DSLR cameras bieng entirely controlled by cheap intervalometers). For the image processing side as mentioned an i5 or better processor desktop pc with a decent sized screen, plenty of RAM and HDD space works for me. High spec desktop PC's are way cheaper than the equivalent laptop and generally easier to upgrade or even self build. The laptop is usefull in terms of portability - I take mine to darksky sites etc.

[Uranium235]

For control and capture, and small netbook will be adequate. Those can be gotten for as little as £40 2nd hand.

For processing, dont use a laptop for serious work as it makes it difficult to judge background levels, plus the screen is too small if youre working on very large images, and more often than not the keyboards are awful. If you want to save some money, go for an AMD based system with an SSD, plenty of memory and a 22" monitor (minimum). If possible, build it yourself and save even more money - especially if you have an old ATX case and suitable PSU kicking around. Maybe even cannibalise other PC's for optical drives and mechanincal HDDs (for long term backups), it depends on how tech savvy you are.

[Luna-tic]

Good information, all. Keep it coming. I can see the advantage doing the post processing on a desktop, so will probably pursue this course and find something simpler for guidance and use in the field.

[swag72]

I do all of my processing with a laptop as I just can't accommodate a desktop and a larger monitor, as much as I'd like. I'm sure that a desktop and large monitor would be a revelation, but I have the limitations that I have and so that's how I work..... I manage

[spillage]

can I ask what have you got now? It might be worth trying the demo versions of software out there first as it may run on what you have. If you feel you have made your software choice then you can look at beefing up an existing desktop or buying something suitable.

I know startools will run on a lower spec pc. Also it depends on how much time you have and how often you will be processing. There is no point spending over the odds on a pc that saves you an hour once a month when you process that one image.

cheers

spill.

[pete_l]

19 hours ago, Luna-tic said:

What is the community recommendation for a good laptop to use for astronomy? My primary uses will be imaging, photo processing and storage, but also for any application needed for viewing and general astronomy.

Astronomy is a very low-usage set of applications.

Almost anything, even a very low-powered Raspberry Pi (not a laptop, BTW - just a £40 board the size of al paying card) is capable of running the telescope, tracking and image capture.

So far as processing goes, basic stacking of sub-images, setting levels, sharpening, and the like doesn't need much processing power by modern standards. It needs some memory. However the computer I use for all of this is a dual-processor Intel Atom machine running at 1.3GHz and 4GB of memory.

Unless you're planning of playing video games or watching 4K films, then almost any device less than 10 years old will do the job.

[Luna-tic]

14 hours ago, swag72 said:

I do all of my processing with a laptop as I just can't accommodate a desktop and a larger monitor, as much as I'd like. I'm sure that a desktop and large monitor would be a revelation, but I have the limitations that I have and so that's how I work..... I manage

 

10 hours ago, spillage said:

can I ask what have you got now? It might be worth trying the demo versions of software out there first as it may run on what you have. If you feel you have made your software choice then you can look at beefing up an existing desktop or buying something suitable.

I know startools will run on a lower spec pc. Also it depends on how much time you have and how often you will be processing. There is no point spending over the odds on a pc that saves you an hour once a month when you process that one image.

cheers

spill.

I have a fairly good desktop, 8GB Ram and 1TB storage, can't remember what processor or its speed, but pretty quick. The big issue with using it is it's a shared system, my wife uses it a lot and both daughters use it occasionally and I have worries they'll screw something up. There have been plenty of times I've had to delete something they downloaded that is eating up speed and memory, and it has on occasion locked up for no good reasons. It is an HP that has been upgraded a couple of times, running W7. I just want something that I can be the only user, and optimize its features for what I want to do with it. A 15" screen is as big as I'd normally need, and I can always HDMI- it to our TV if I need bigger when doing post-processing.

That brings up another question: which generation Windows is best for our purposes? My mother has W10 on her computer and I hate it, very cantankerous and difficult to navigate. W7 has always been good to use, does it have what's needed for a little growth?

 

[Alien 13]

I have used most operating systems and out of 10 I would give the following...

Win XP, 7 out of 10

Win 7, 6 out of 10

Win 8, 2 out of 10

Win 10, 11 out of 10 

Alan

[spillage]

Well I am sorry but I really am probably the wrong person to answer this..Reason being is that I would dual boot my existing pc with a second hard drive running linux as startools run fine on this and you then have gimp available.  But I guess I am just not a windows fan. I fully understand when it comes to having a windows pc at the scope makes sense and also for other software but for now when it comes to processing then linux works for me.

Although in your situation I would worry to much about a shared pc. After all I find that I will sit down and process my image till I'm happy then save it so no really worries about someone mucking up a pc for processing.

[SonnyE]

When I get in the market for a computer, I usually look at what the gaming crowd is doing. Because the gamer's lead the way for CPU and imaging (Graphics) top performance. All good attributes for our photography needs.

My mount and telescope are currently being run by a fairly simple Intel Stick computer, and storing to a 64 Gb micro card inserted to the Stick computer. The next day, I remove the SD card and insert it into my desktop computer to process the images.

Don't laugh, but my field laptop (which I'm on because I'm away) is a 2004 Toshiba Satellite. And surprisingly enough, it works rather well for its age with 4 gigs of RAM and a 2.2 Turion processor.

I have a few tricks I use with my computers in general. I try to keep the operating system as light as practical, by storing things off my computers, like on SD Cards. The less clutter a processor has to sift through, the faster things can run.

But almost anything you would find today is going to outperform your needs. Just lean towards graphics performance, RAM size (go big), and big Solid State hard drives (storage).

Pretty simple, without mind numbing gobbelty-gook.

Oh, and if you look at what the manufacturers are leaning toward, it's Windows as the operating systems. So my advice is to avoid Apple and Linux for simplicity. Those tend to make things a bit more complicated to mesh.