best telescope for astrophotography for laptop

#Best telescope for astrophotography for laptop serial
#Best telescope for astrophotography for laptop update
#Best telescope for astrophotography for laptop driver
#Best telescope for astrophotography for laptop manual
#Best telescope for astrophotography for laptop software

Macs are great computers but will MASSIVELY increase the difficulty of getting things to work, there are far more astronomy programs for Windows If thinking about a netbook, remember some programs will not like the low screen resolution and may be difficult to use.Try to never use a USB hub port for mount/camera control Relegate ports on a USB hub to mice, game controllers, etc.Count how many USB ports you will need, add a few extra, maybe with a USB hub.Once you load your stuff on it you probably will not need a CD/DVD drive so an external may be fine.

#Best telescope for astrophotography for laptop serial

If you require a serial port to run your mount, make sure the unit has one or has a way to add one (PC card slots are awesome), USB to serial adapters are finicky so treat them as a last resort.

If you control everything like I do make sure you get at least 4GB of RAM, 2GB is fine for camera control only.

If you are downloading images to your laptop you should consider at least a 250GB hard drive or SSD.

You probably do not need a large screen size, something in the 14″ range would probably be fine.

If you image at a site with AC power, you may not need a battery.

Some things to think about when purchasing an astrophotography laptop are: When you compare this to what you paid for the rest of your equipment this is not too expensive. You can get a really nice unit for under $500 if you want to splurge. A nice refurbished (by the manufacturer) or off lease unit can often cost $300 or less. There is for example no reason to purchase a new unit unless you just want to. There is good news in that an astrophotography laptop can be an inexpensive addition to your astrophotography equipment. At this point you will be more than ready for a dedicated astrophotography laptop! I know I need an astrophotography laptop, now what do I do? Now you get to spend the next four hours tracking down the problem.

The real bummer here is that if your luck is like mine, you won’t even know something is broken until you get out into the field, get your equipment set up and are settling in for a long night when you realize you can’t track an object.

If it does, it can be difficult to figure out what exactly did what and even more difficult to put things back like they were. If any of this happens, there is a good chance that one or more of your astronomy computer programs may quit working.

#Best telescope for astrophotography for laptop update

Update of other components such as Java/Flash/DirectX/.NET etc.

#Best telescope for astrophotography for laptop software

Software installation/updates that replace Windows DLL/OCX files (or Mac equivalent).

Unfortunately there are a lot of things that can break some of your functionality: Once you have all this working working (which in itself can be no easy feat) you certainly do not want anything to mess it up. On my system this is all linked into the software running the guider, the software running the mount, the planetarium software and finally, EQMOD which ties all this together. Then the serial data has to talk directly to the hardware in the mount.

#Best telescope for astrophotography for laptop driver

This PC card has a serial port in it, another driver is required for that. For example driving the telescope mount requires the astrophotography laptop communicate with a third party PC card installed in the PC card slot.

Runs many miscellaneous astronomy software programsĪ good portion of this requires drivers, software components and direct hardware access.

Provides target management including notes on exposures, temperatures, seeing conditions and more.

#Best telescope for astrophotography for laptop manual

Provides a bridge to my gamepad for manual mount control.

Allows quick and dirty processing to make sure the target is what and where expected.Manages the camera including temperature control and exposures.Makes corrections to the tracking based on input from the guidescope.The only computer related task that it does not do in the field is play movies to keep me entertained while imaging. My astrophotography laptop pretty much does everything. Let talk about what an astrophotography laptop does. Hopefully this article will help everyone understand the benefits. They often look at me strangely which then leads to a lengthy explanation. This is also one of the first things I tell newcomers to the hobby. One of the best decisions I have made in my astrophotography endeavors is to have bought a completely separate astrophotography laptop for use out in the field. Build your own drop trap for small animals.Pen Collecting can give you a lot of enjoyment.Best Fountain Pen Book for Beginning Collectors.The TriAtlas Project Mirror, Free Star Charts.Free Star Maps / Star Charts, Mirrors and Links.My astrophotography & astronomy equipment.