Leave it to a comet to give me the little nudge I needed to justify putting together a new computer for image processing, LOL! I've been shuffling files between two different computers for a couple of years now just to get my images processed the way I wanted. One PC was a Linux workstation that ran PI competently, but had too old of a CPU/GPU to run the latest R/C Astro tools, the other PC ran Windows 10 with a I5-3570K processor that could run the tools, albeit very slowly. The GPU was Radeon based, so no love there. I thought about just swapping out for an Nvidia GPU, but figured why pump money into an almost 10 year-old system? I still would have to bobble between 2 systems, which wasn't really efficient. I started processing the 100 subs I took of the comet and came to an impasse when it was time to strip the stars away from the registered files. I was not impressed with the image I produced with other methods and was really insistent on using StarXterminator to help me produce something more pleasing to look at. I loaded the batch of files into SXT on my old PC and watched as it took almost 15 minutes per image to produce a starless version! Like a home project that starts with replacing a sink and turns into a full kitchen remodel, I decided that it was finally time to start brainstorming on  <cue Dr. Heinz Doofenshmirtz voice>  "A NEW PIX-INSIGHT-INATOR!"

The new system is complete and for it's maiden voyage, I have used it to produce the comet image you see before you. The perma-cloud in my area has been relentless, so I was not fortunate enough to get after the comet when conditions were far better and the comet was much prettier. The sky was full of moisture and moonlight and it was brutally cold. I had to keep swapping batteries on my tired old DSLR to keep it going. Thanks to Adam Block for his outstanding comet processing series, without them, things would've come out a bit uglier.

For those who want to know, I built a system around an Intel Pro Z690-A chipset MB, with a Core i9 13th Gen Raptor Lake CPU, 64GB DDR5 RAM, a 2TB M.2 NVMe drive, AIO 360mm liquid cooling, an Nvidia GTX 3070Ti GPU, and a couple of 500GB SSDs and one 2TB spin drive I had laying around, all spaciously placed in a Fractal Design Pop Air XL ATX full tower case. Windows 11 Pro seems to be playing nicely.

Clear skies!