2.86
#...
·
 |
|---|
|
Hi all, I'm looking for laptop recommendations for solar imaging use when my Lunt LS50 finally arrives. I have a very old one kicking about but it won't be up to the task. Given the need for high frame rate video and data transfer I want to make sure I pick up something capable of supporting that. Can anyone share the specs of what works for you? Or offer any advice as to what I should be prioritising? I know I'll need to make use of USB 3 for the fastest transfer speeds and a fast SSD will no doubt help, but what else should I value or be on the look out for? I plan to image away from home so battery life and portability is also a consideration. It's main use will be for solar and planetary imaging. I already have a desktop I use for processing and an ASIAir for my deep sky capture. Thanks all Danny |
2.81
#...
·
·
2
likes
|
|---|
|
Hello Danny, I have recently been dealing with the exact same situation and was given great advice by Martin Wise on Cloudy Nights and from his videos (under the name Wise Imaging) on YouTube. I will try to construct a worth summary here, but you may want to check in with the master himself. 1. Most laptops built within the last few years have CPU's, GPU's, RAM and SSD's capable of supporting the frame rates you need. What often is lacking, especially on lower end laptops, is adequate bus speed of the motherboard. Without a high enough bus speed, this becomes the bottleneck and nothing else is then able to operate at full capacity. Look for the highest bus speed you can. 2. Consider an external SSD and an internal one. I have regularly filled the internal one and need to switch to external storage if I want to continue imaging. Nowadays, I just use the external and switch to internal if I fill up the external one. This of course does require at least two USB-3 capable ports; one for the camera and one for the external SSD. 3. Adequate cooling - many laptops will throttle down the voltage if the CPU gets too hot because they don't have great internal cooling or big fans to blow away all that hot air. When the voltage throttles down, the processor speed goes down, too. I was considering a gaming laptop for its better cooling (gamers want high FPS, too) but was told this wasn't necessary. Just look for something that has enough cooling ability (active or passive) to prevent thermal throttling. 4. USB traffic - this is actually more related to your camera settings in your capture software. Make sure to adjust USB traffic to get the highest frame rate without dropping frames. When I adjusted mine properly, I DOUBLED the frame rate I was getting. 5. Camera type - while both solar and planetary can be done with the same camera (I use a mono 178 IMX camera), hydrogen-alpha solar and planetary can actually benefit from different pixel sizes. Many solar images use a 174-based camera because at the wavelength of hydrogen-alpha light you can critically sample the image with a larger pixel size, and larger, fewer pixels covering the same area will download faster allowing for even higher frame rates. Meanwhile, planetary imaging benefits from much smaller pixels, especially since the ROI is usually so much smaller that you are not trying to download huge numbers of pixels with every frame. Hope this helps, Arnie |
6.45
#...
·
|
|---|
|
I'm not really computer savvy but I have success with my intel i7 core. Arnie makes a lot of good points, and I would iterate on his multiple USB 3.0 ports and having a faster USB rate to write the data so there is no lag between capture files. Get the largest HD you can afford and RAM memory. 1TB-2TB should be fine. Animations take up the most memory as you are collecting around 100 video files for each. Look for a laptop with an expanded memory slot. I added RAM to my laptop after I purchased it, not hard to do just make sure to get the correct memory and the maximum your laptop can run. In Solar Photograph, speed is King. Good Luck, Eddie |
|
2.86
#...
·
|
|---|
|
Thanks very much for the detailed response Arnie. 1) I've been looking today and have been struggling to determine the bus speeds of specific laptops. Generally its not something advertised as part of the specification and in most cases vendors don't even identify the motherboard make/model. Have you had any experience of this, any resources that might help with that? Generally speaking it seems bus speeds should be in line with the other components, a higher spec should in theory mean higher bus speeds to support. It would be nice to have a way of finding that info though. 2-4) Two or more USB-3 ports seems sensible and I'll keep cooling in mind, thanks for the tip. 5) That's interesting and not something I've heard before. I'll be using an IMX 178MM too initially as that looked to me, to be the best sampling fit for a 50mm, 350mm fl @ f7 scope. I'll admit, I did wonder why many are using a 174 with similar scopes as on paper the pixel size doesn't seem like the most ideal fit. |
|
2.86
#...
·
·
1
like
|
|---|
Eddie Bagwell: Thanks for the advice Eddie. There is quite a healthy used/refurbished market for laptops in the UK so there are plenty of options. Great gallery by the way, you have some lovely images! |
6.65
#...
·
·
1
like
|
|---|
|
Great advice from everyone. One point I did not see was the laptop memory: make sure you have at least 16 gb. With 8gb on my old laptop I found there was no memory available as a buffer for the incoming data, W11 etc used pretty much all the laptop memory. With 16 gb I am able to use an 8gb high frame rate cache (pretty much the maximum available in SharpCap and with that I get no dropouts). I set the cache in Sharpcap, which I use for acquisition. SharpCap Pro also has a neat feature to test the speed of the transfer to the specific folder you are going to save to, so you can see exactly how fast the actual transfer/write itself was to your computer, ie. independant of the camrea (it tests a 6 gb transfer). Rick |
