Any old laptop?

[Robert Anstruther]

Hey all,

I just bought an old laptop for my outdoor astronomy, Dell Latititude 800MHz, 384mb RAM and 10gb hard drive. It will only be for guiding and to use for imaging, or rather the download of raw data from CCD camera to laptop (not stacking, photoshop etc), but I have had a couple of thoughts. Firstly it only has one USB port (1.1) so I will need at least 2? (One for guiding control and one for camera) so will need to use a powered USB hub. Will this cause either power problems or data problems? Also I have been wondering about the size of the raw data files, will 10gb be enough for a nights imaging?

Thanks,

Rob

[Ben Ritchie]

What CCD are you using?

Some more modern ones expect USB2, while larger arrays create bigger files which may tax your 10Gb disk space (lunar/planetary imaging with a 'webcam' also creates lots of large files). But something like a smallish USB1.1 CCD (e.g. the Atik 16HR) will be fine with 10Gb.

Might be worth looking to see if you can upgrade the RAM though, Windows is happier with a bit more space and RAM is very cheap these days

[Robert Anstruther]

Hi Ben,

I haven't started imaging yet, I am in the process of getting ready. My fears are true then, I should have done a little more research before jumping in! As far as Windows goes I use a very 'lite' version with the all the trimming removed so it runs using only 60mb but I am looking to upgrade if I can find the parts for it. Thanks for the info.

Rob

[Ben Ritchie]

The problem i've seen with Windows and low memory is that the OS may decide to swap out data to disk at an inopportune moment, which causes everything (including USB downloads) to become less important as far as it's concerned. I used to have this issue with an IBM 770 laptop with 512Mb when using a Starlight Xpress CCD, and you'd get half an image with the rest black. So worth having plenty if you can, and likely to only be £10 or £20 to upgrade if the laptop can take more.

Plenty of CCDs that will work fine with that laptop though, so don't despair!

[Robert Anstruther]

Oh I see what you mean. I am going to do a little research now about upgrades, thanks again.

[Parallax]

I was in a similar situation but couldn't find a powered 4 port hub that would work with USB1.1 - ended up buying a new laptop!. 'Trust' make a range of hubs that are stated as USB 2.0 & 1.1 - THEY'RE NOT, so beware.

Steve