Mid 2010 Mac mini for image capture

[Hemi]

Hello,

I was wondering if a mid 2010 Mac mini, upgraded with 8gb Ram and an ssd, running win10pro would be powerful enough as a image capture pc at the scope? Not for processing the data. It doesn’t have usb 3 of course. I have a asi 294. I would Remote Desktop into it.

Cheers

Hemi

[Atmos]

I have thought about something similar and I imagine it would do a fine job. You don’t need much for image capture :)

[Hemi]

Thanks Atmos,

That’s good, I have it lying around so will repurpose it, rather than getting a nuc. Thought I would ask before going to the trouble of putting in the ssd (also lying around waiting to be put to some good use).

Cheers

Hemi

[Atmos]

I wouldn't put it as a priority unless it has similar or more storage than what is currently on the Mac Mini. You're only using USB2 so you are not going to need the write speed faster than what is currently in there anyway.

[Nikolas]

you can double the ram to16 despite the specs saying otherwise, an ssd is also a great upgrade but as Colin said the limiting factor is the usb 2 bottleneck.

[Hemi]

Thanks Guys,

Had some time this morning, so added the ssd as a second drive, and installed win 10pro. Not fully compatible...the nvidia 320 card only works with generic drivers and bluetooth is a no go so far. That should be ok as I will Remote in.

Installed ascom, drivers, stellarium, sharpcap, all sky plate solver, index files.
Haven’t gone live...tomorrow. Hooked up the 294, max resolution at very short exposures drops every frame. But I presume that’s not a realistic scenario (excuse me here, as I’m an imaging novice), I figure planets require short, very fast exposures, and not using the entire sensor. And deep space require longer exposures, so shouldn’t drop frames.

Will give it a go and see, otherwise I will consider a nuc.

Cheers

Hemi

[sil]

Try at 640x480 resolution and shortest exposures, that should cover planetary expectations but disappointing you can't use full frame which would be more realistic for jupiter/saturn plus moons. I wonder how the long exposure frames work, if the data bottleneck could cause lost lines through the frame or if the whole exposure is captured in camera and then transferred to computer.

[Wavytone]

Hemi, there's a new Mini coming real soon now. Significant performance increment.

FWIW any bottleneck is not the Mini, its the USB ports - even a 2010 Mini is quite capable of saturating the bandwidth of all the USB ports concurrently.

[Hemi]

Evenings have been busy, but went live briefly on a couple of nights for testing. A bit laggy. Stellarium particularly so. Might be WiFi. The Mac mini/windows dual boot is using old legacy drivers for the WiFi n. And can’t get drivers to work for the nvidia 320 (known issue). I had an old usb WiFi AC dongle that I’ve now installed, and will see how that goes.

I have two methods for doing this currently:

1. AZ EQ6 and asi 294....SW WiFi.....syn scan mobile WiFi ascom driver.....sharp cap+stellarium scope+stellarium.

2. AZ EQ6 and asi294....starsense for SW/Celestron box and Hand controller.....usb serial to Mac mini....Celestron ascom driver.....sharpcap and wifiscope.....sky safari.

With both options I Remote Desktop into the Mac mini for sharpcap at least.
I’m surprised at how easy it was to get everything to talk! Ascom is pretty amazing. Number 2 is my preferred option so far as it gives me back sky safari and star sense.

Thoughts would be most welcome.


H