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Ian Robinson
13-05-2008, 11:39 PM
I'm running XP Pro SP2 on my Laptop.

And XP Home SP2 on the desktop (that's what it came with and I haven't upgraded it to XP Pro seems to work OK as is even if it is a HP Pavilion and we've had nothing but hardware problems since we took delivery of the it .... I'll never buy another HP).

I see no good reason to "upgrade" to Vista.

RB
14-05-2008, 12:44 AM
I'm holding onto XP as long as I can, don't need or really want to downgrade to Vista.
Also if I ever need to buy another lappy it will not be another HP that's for sure.
Probably get a Toshiba.

:thumbsup:

JohnH
14-05-2008, 05:27 AM
XP SP2 on most - Vista on the newest Dell Laptop only - I do NOT intend to touch Vista for astro work - too slow and lack of drivers/support for most grear and programs. Anyone gone to Vista SP1 yet - reviews seem to indicate it is barely worth performing the update - no must haves.

Dennis
14-05-2008, 05:52 AM
XP Pro SP2 on both desktops and on 1 Notebook. Win 98 SE on the older Notebook.

Cheers

Dennis

gbeal
14-05-2008, 05:56 AM
XP Pro on the only PC I own, and only for imaging.
OSX on the others.

dannat
14-05-2008, 07:12 AM
OS X here on 3 machines, on it's way is a linux eeePc for the kids - actually so i can use outdoors at night :whistle:

have xp with sp2 runing via bootcamp on two of the macs - only for essentials

renormalised
14-05-2008, 07:12 AM
XP Pro SP2 on one of my PC's....Linux on the same computer (it's dual boot) and OSX Leopard on my iMac.

I also have an older PC I'll be switching over to Linux from Win98.

Although, I like Win98. I can tweak it and get it to run really well with hardly any BSOD's...especially when it's in good running order.

snowyskiesau
14-05-2008, 07:15 AM
XP Pro only on the laptop - some needed security software only runs under Windows.

Otherwise it's linux on the other computers and OS-X on the Mac Mini.

acropolite
14-05-2008, 07:24 AM
XP Pro SP2 on everything, I prefer pro over the home version as I use remote desktop a lot and I need Pro on the laptop for the extra security features.

I have had little exposure to Vista but from what I've seen and read it's a step backwards.

Dennis
14-05-2008, 07:26 AM
Actually, make that XP Pro SP3 for one desktop – I just installed SP3.

Cheers

Dennis

CoombellKid
14-05-2008, 07:28 AM
XP Pro + SP2

regards,CS

ozstockman
14-05-2008, 07:36 AM
I have XP Pro SP2 on one desktop and a laptop. XP Tablet edition SP2 on my tablet PC and XP Pro SP2 on a nice UMPC I recently bough. All astrosoft work fine on these computers.
However my wife has a laptop with XP Home SP2 and russian localization and I had problems running planetary software with ASCOM based mount control. Dunno whether it was because of some problems with a serial port or because of russian XP Home but I could not connect to my mount via ASCOM. I checked the serial port and it seemed to work with other applications so I guess it's something wrong with ASCOM running on this OS.

DJVege
14-05-2008, 07:37 AM
XP Pro SP2 on my desktop. My laptop came with Vista installed, and only "supported" vista drivers. After loading Vista once, removed it, put XP SP2 on it, and searched for compatible XP drivers.

Vista's painful. Mind you, with 2GB of ram, it's much better...but I still won't touch it. Not till next year maybe....after a couple of service packs.

renormalised
14-05-2008, 07:46 AM
Iz probaobly nothink. Goot Russian computer programs OS Windows run well wiv everythink, da!!!. Maybe ASSSCOM iz infected wiv viralz stuff of imperialist Amerikanski CIA dezigns roobish!!!. Much better yu uz goot ol Russians softsware. Workz like all goot comradez for betterment of proletariate order. Spaceba...Dozhverdoniya!!!!.:P:D:ro fl:

programmer
14-05-2008, 08:02 AM
Vista Home Premium 64 bit on my desktop
Vista Home Basic 32 bit on my son's desktop
Vista Home Basic 32 bit on my astro laptop
XP Home Premium 64 bit as a relic from the past

Windows user and programmer for *cough* many years. Also first used Linux before 99.99% of the current population had heard of it. Get 2Gb (for about $40) or more and Vista flies.

RB
14-05-2008, 09:47 AM
Dennis is that available through MS website or did you request a CD to be sent out.

In previous SP-updates I was able to contact MS and they'd send out the SP on CD, saves me d/l it everytime I need it for my systems.

Bloodbean
14-05-2008, 09:55 AM
XP SP2 on everything at home, just doing a little trial here at work with SP3(1,000 PC's here) to see if it works with our apps and so far so good.

Dennis
14-05-2008, 09:58 AM
Hi Andrew

It was a 66Mb download which hung part way through, so I had to re-start it again, but it finished okay. There is an option to request a CD.

It took several minutes to install and the “read before installing” notes advised that my ATI Radeon 9800XT graphics card would lose its portrait/landscape capability unless I installed the latest SW and Drivers from ATI (now AMD!).

After SP3 completed there were still another 4 downloads due to various Office products I have installed.

The ATI uninstall and re-install took several re-boots so overall, it took a couple of hours from start to finish.

I did try to short cut the ATI upgrade but my Dual TV Tuner card didn’t like it so I had to do the full ATI uninstall and re-install – sigh, I should have listened!

Starry Night Pro 6 and The Sky 6 Pro seemed to open and display correctly at face value, but I’ll check more comprehensively later in the day!

Cheers

Dennis

AlexN
14-05-2008, 11:15 AM
I have Vista Ultimate on my desktop and on my laptop. and I've had 0 problems with it. It takes a little time to get used to it at first, and there was a fairly extreme element of tweaking done to the os after the initial install, but since then its been without issue. A lot of people are quick to say that Vista is crap, however I think its a combination of people who can not / don't want to adapt to a bit of change, and people trying to run it on systems that just aren't powerful enough..

my desktop pc is a quad core 3ghz, 8gb of ram and has 2x 1gb video cards + 3Tb of hdd space. and at present, the system has been up for 87 days...

programmer
14-05-2008, 11:23 AM
Agree with your post except for this bit which can put people off (IMHO). Runs great on my 1.7GhZ single core laptop in 2Gb. :)

Edit: It's just great we have some choices.. Linux variants, OSX and Windows (talking about mainstream OSes).

Jazza
14-05-2008, 11:32 AM
Running Ubuntu Hardy 8.04 atm :)

AlexN
14-05-2008, 02:23 PM
Its on my laptop also, 1.8ghz centrino 2gb... :) just changed some of the visual settings for optimum performance

MrB
14-05-2008, 02:49 PM
Win98SE on lappie and one desktop... had no reason to upgrade yet.
Other Desktop has 2000 Pro, don't like it.

renormalised
14-05-2008, 02:50 PM
Alex, you have to remember that most people don't have your skills with a computer to be able to tweak their OS to run well with their computers. Most also haven't bought a computer for a year or more so their system's probably can't run Vista well enough, if at all. Plus you're right about people who don't want to or can't change OSes....and why should they. Just because Uncle Bill thinks it's great to change everything on your computer to run the new OS, and close support for the others, doesn't mean that joe average should go out and pay $$$ to do so. We're not all multi-billionaires or all that interested (or cashed up ) to do so. If he thinks it's great, then let him and those that can, do it. What about the myriad of people in places like Africa and such who still run computers with OSes like Win95/98 and can't afford XP/Vista or top flight computers??. Do we just ignore them and let them wallow in their "ignorance". Some people are just happy they can get a computer at all. I have an old Celeron 400MHz computer sitting at home which I still use...runs Win98. Does everything some modern, you beaut "supercomputer" can do except all the fancy graphics and such. But it does all the basic stuff well. That's what a lot of people have. Why should they change if it works.

I like your comps specs, but not everyone can afford a computer like that!!!!:eyepop:

Home built????

programmer
14-05-2008, 03:10 PM
Come on, you know this is FUD. See post #22.

Alex, with 8Gb I hope you have 64 bit Windows ;)

renormalised
14-05-2008, 03:38 PM
Most peeps only have 1GB or less of memory in their computers and whilst that will run Vista, it's a tad tedious. You're not "joe average" computer user...even with that laptop's specs, which are about a year or two old:)

Try running it on your lappie with 512MB and a 1.7GHz single core. 1gig is about the minimum you really need.

programmer
14-05-2008, 03:52 PM
My lappy is 6 months old. I got it for astro purposes, and doesn't need to be a powerhouse for my needs. It did come with 512Mb and was unusable. I spent about $60 on 2Bg and now it's great.

For crying out loud 1Gb of RAM is $30!! The continuing 'belief' that RAM is expensive is incredible.

BTW my desktop is a different issue. Although already 'old' (a year I think) it was good at the time (E6600 C2D and 8800GTX video). I rebuild mine about once every 12-18 months for about $700 total outlay after selling off my old stuff on eBay :D Coming up soon for me is probably a 9800GX2 and Q9550 :) I'm not a fan of SLI.

Almost home time :thumbsup:

Glenhuon
14-05-2008, 04:02 PM
4 with XP Home. 1 with vista ( in the cupboard, might get around to using it one day). XP pro +SP2 on the laptop, and the backup desktop for imaging.
Happy with XP, when it gets to the stage it won't do what I want, then I'll drag out the Vista Machine.

BTW, I'm on a pension so most of the bits for these machines were salvaged from tips opr bought very cheaply. We live in a throw away world (says he wif a smile)

Bill

AlexN
14-05-2008, 04:30 PM
Yeah the pc is home built, and Programmer - yeah, vista ultimate 64bit... 32bit can't address that much memory.. the video cards are 3870GX2's.. I too do not like SLi, the scaling just isn't worth the outlay with nvidia graphics...

renormalised
14-05-2008, 05:09 PM
That's OK....but those specs are for a computer about a year old or so. I never said RAM was expensive. You and I know that, but joe average doesn't. Most people who buy a computer for the first time are flat out knowing how to turn the damn things on!!!!!. Let alone using one competently.

Speaking of which, I've got to rebuild mine soon....getting long in the tooth (AMD XP 2500+ (Barton core....nice:)), 256MB, onboard GPU etc etc)... but I don't mind spending a bit of money on it:D Might even build a completely new one and use the old one as a server running Red Hat, or similar OS:D

renormalised
14-05-2008, 05:11 PM
With the specs you quoted, that must've set you back in the wallet a bit!!!!:eyepop:

Ian Robinson
14-05-2008, 05:50 PM
I maxed out the RAM on my laptop when I bought it , 2GB , and the same on my desktop , 8 GB.

If I could put more RAM into these ---- I would.

More ram is the bee's knees in speeding up a computer , even a fast harddrive runs at a snails pace compared to the RAM and the pipeline.

Tilt
14-05-2008, 06:21 PM
Just as long as there isn't a drought in Taiwan then RAM will remain cheap. Unless you want that Uber stuff for PC gaming ;)

Lee
14-05-2008, 06:29 PM
OSX on 2 laptops inside - XP on my observatory desktop.

duncan
14-05-2008, 06:54 PM
Seems to me everybodyn us using XP to run their Astro stuff.
Anybody got something better?

:thumbsup:

Tandum
14-05-2008, 11:21 PM
There is nothing better. XP is the most common and most supported software on the planet. It was released in 2002 so 6 years is a really long time for any sort of software to be used these days.

I was a programmer for almost 20 years but have been running a pc consulting business for the last 5 years. I run Vista on the desktop, so I know what doesn't work, XP on the laptop, so I have a machine that does work and Linux on the server. The server has been up for 229 days. That was when I upgraded the hard drives.

Lee
15-05-2008, 05:55 AM
Don't equate most common with best too quickly! :poke::P:)

g__day
15-05-2008, 08:58 AM
I pretty sure all my PCs at home run XP Pro + SP3. Yes service pack 3 has been out for a short while now guys.

Vista business has problems for me at work with the way our domains are set up - tech support couldn't get it to connect after 3 days trying! - probably sours my view of Vista.

Karls48
15-05-2008, 10:32 AM
Main computer runs Windows Millennium and XP Pro dual boot. I use Millennium most of the times and boot to XP only for new software that does not work on Millennium. On laptop I run XP home. On Meteor capture I run XP Pro and on Radio Meteors machine Windows 98. I will not be changing to Vista for in foreseeable future. Despite of what most of people say about Windows Millennium, I got very few problems with it.

Davros
15-05-2008, 05:34 PM
OS-X on the macbook, it replaced a desktop running ubuntu linux. The wife uses vista home deluxe and it is the slowest, heaviest OS i have ever seen. Her computer freezes probably once every two days Her desktop runs 4 gig ram as does my macbook. The macbook walks all over the desktop for speed.

programmer
15-05-2008, 10:28 PM
Haven't heard of that version of Vista Davros. If it's that slow somebody must've rebadged OSX and sold her that. Ugliest, most bloated pig of an OS I've ever seen, and I've seen a few.

Gargoyle_Steve
16-05-2008, 12:18 AM
Alex I used to run Win 98 SE on a PIII-550 system with 512Mb RAM and 27Gb HDD space, and I would be as disapointed as hell if it had a restart / application lock up / system bog down in anything under 120, 150, maybe 200 days. This was used ALL the time for business and gaming, it was also my complete communications centre, handling faxes and all my voice calls / answering / paging via 2 physical landlines / 3 distinct phone numbers. Usually the only time it had a restart was due to me either installing new software or changing hardware configuration around.
(Just realised I SO miss that old machine!!!) :doh:

So you'll understand that I don't necessarily consider 87 days to be a glowing recommendation of an OS stability, not yet anyway, especially considering Vista is 4 generations down the track and should be 4 generations MORE stable.
;)

What do I run these days?
My old laptop still runs the Win 98 it came with, my main desktop runs XP Home SP2, and I have a machine somewhere around with an older distribution version of Red Hat Linux on it.

Lee
16-05-2008, 05:50 AM
Interesting to hear it called bloated - each version of OSX seems to be lighter and more stable than preceeding.... when is the last time you could run a new version of windows on a 6yr old machine (effectively)??

fringe_dweller
16-05-2008, 09:57 AM
*sigh* how inevitable in such a thread lol bully boy M$ evangelists, dont ya like choice in life?

fringe_dweller
16-05-2008, 09:57 AM
exactly :thumbsup:

fringe_dweller
16-05-2008, 10:07 AM
imagine the howls of protest if the car industry was run like computer world, we would all have to drive the same car, a prada :D

FarmerBen
17-05-2008, 08:22 PM
OS X on a MacBook
Ubuntu Gutsy (soon to be Hardy) on Dell PC.

The only windows in my place are the ones in the walls :)

FarmerBen
17-05-2008, 08:35 PM
Only 229 days?? I've had Netware servers up twice as long... damn those support packs ;) Linux is a very cool server OS.

Tandum
17-05-2008, 11:01 PM
I'm pretty sure I equated most suported with best available.

For a comparison, they sold more copies of Vista in the first week of sales than they have ever sold of apple computers since they started, and no one wants vista. Not dissing apples at all, every system has it's place and apples seems to have found theirs in publishing houses. Remember Bill Gates owns 51% of Apple as well.

Farmerben, I had to stop it to replace the hard drives. We download too many tv shows :)

Lee
18-05-2008, 05:33 AM
Publishing houses?? OK..... Most supported?- most users yes, most software yes - but how many image viewers do you need, how many newsreaders or browsers do you really need to choose from??
Best of all - how many anti-virus suites do you need??? :)

Fox
18-05-2008, 09:00 PM
Mac OS X all the way on two iMacs. BootCamp on one of them to run Windows XP - for Autostar. Cheers, Fox.

fringe_dweller
18-05-2008, 09:23 PM
erm thats coz you don't have a choice its bundled with machine? :lol:

:)

fringe_dweller
18-05-2008, 09:33 PM
:rofl::rofl: well said, its only programmmers not writing for them due to obvious financial incentives side thats the problem, not coz they arent good enough to write for eh

yep have a friend who is 14 year veteren highly skilled techie, his last 5k PC laptop came loaded with Vista, he was shocked to say the least, when he soon picked up a nasty virus that required a total rebuild!! so just loaded xp pro instead, and has refused to go back just yet, he seems shaken by the experience :scared: if he's now wary of it atm!, (plus there was a whole bunch of stuff he couldnt do anymore as well at the time as other reasons to be fair), I would be definitely wary

AlexN
19-05-2008, 02:49 AM
that was 87 days since the system was built Steve...

My home server pc runs gentoo linux, i cant remember the last time that was turned off... gotta be coming on a year now.

I wasnt trying to say that vista is the be all and end all of OS's, Far FAAAR from it... but it doesn't deserve the bad name that it gets..

sejanus
19-05-2008, 01:20 PM
I'm not going to get into an OS war but I will say that I've been a systems guy for near 10 years with unix & windows, and I'm very comfy with my choice these days of OS X :)

PeteMo
24-05-2008, 01:07 AM
Mac OS X Panther 10.3.9 on G4 1.467GHz
Mac OS X Tiger 10.4.11 on Intel Imac 2.167GHz
Windows 2000 SP4/PC-BSD/Slackware on Celeron D330 PC

Mac OSX is a member of the BSD Unix family and very stable. Yes Apples more expensive than their PC counterparts, but they have a unique design that sets them apart from PC's. I'm still running my old G4 533 Digital Audio Tower, with a faster G4 Daughter board upgrade and am more than happy with it's performance. Apples have been pretty good to upgrade, even a G3 can be upgraded to run a fast G4 processor, the equivalent of putting a Pentium 4 chip in an old Pentium 2/3 PC.

It's horses for courses in the end

Starkler
24-05-2008, 09:36 AM
I run XP home as a main OS and have ubuntu linux 7.04 on another few partitions.

I really cant understand the one-eyed linux evangelists. I have invested a LOT of time into ubuntu getting everything working, the desktop tweaked with compiz enhancements, finding apps to do all the things I do in windows, and not to mention the backflipping required to find, compile and install drivers for common hardware,..ie nvidia, nic etc.

IMO in general linux apps look and feel agricultural in comparison to the windows counterparts. The sound mixer is horrible, sound quality is bad, there is very poor webcam support and well.... it apparently makes a great server OS, but as a desktop replacement for windows it still has a long way to go.
Just my humble opinion of course :whistle:

David Tangye
28-05-2008, 04:32 PM
You might like to install an up to date version. A major new version of Ubuntu comes out each 6 months. So you could be on Ubuntu 7.10 (October 07) or 8.04 (April 08) now. Each of these has significant improvements over 7.04, as will any Linux distro as we continue into the future; generally far more so than any commercial product can hope to achieve. Upgrading the Ubuntu distro is simple and as with all open-source software, it remains free.

Plus Ubuntu and many linux distros can be set to semi-automatically update regularly, eg daily, all the software packages that you allow its package manager to control. In my case that has been 99.9% for the past several years.


As a cost-effective, efficient desktop replacement for Windows, I have found that several Linux-based distros surpassed Windows in most ways some time ago, at least for anything I have wanted to do.

David Tangye
28-05-2008, 04:41 PM
Perhaps, but this is lately an issue again because Micro$oft Windoze Vista needs a ridiculous amount of memory to work properly, eg 2 gB and up. Its a sad bad joke. XP, and most old and current Macs and Linux systems run happily on a fraction of that, eg .5gB.

marki
28-05-2008, 08:07 PM
G'day all

I dont know why Vista is recieving such bad reviews. I have it on my PC (64 bit ultimate, home built hotrod) and laptop (32 bit home premium, Toshiba A300) and have found it to be a significant step forward over XP Pro with either service pack 2 and 3. I have found no issues with speed in either format, you just have to run machines with a bit of grunt (ie lots of ram, good cpu etc) thats all (64 bit version flys with all applications tried so far). All my camera's etc work perfectly on the 32 bit version and I am yet to encounter a crash during imaging which was a regular feature on my old laptop running XP Pro SP2 (Toshiba P30). The only problem has been getting some canon 400D drivers for the 64 bit version to run in MaximDL and that is why I will use both versions until the software people catch up as they have promised to do in the very near future. When this happens I will go to the 64 bit ultimate on both machines. By the way, Toshiba make great laptops.

Mark

Robert_T
28-05-2008, 08:19 PM
Two words... "Vista" and "don't"

and from a song "if I could turn back time"...well if I could, I'd reformat the thing and install XP!!! :P

the little bells and whistles (which I grant it has a few) can't make up for the program incompatabilities, dozens of hours lost in trying to get all the programs I used to have working on XP no problem working again on this... some never to be recovered... $ wasted on hardware I've bought that worked on XP that doesn't on vista...not to mentioned the constant and annoying asking for permission to do just about everything (found out how to turn that off now:thumbsup:).

marki
28-05-2008, 08:32 PM
This may seem like a silly question but have you set the .exe for your older programs to run in XP SP2 compatable mode??? It worked for me.

TrevorW
31-05-2008, 08:01 AM
I use XP SP2 on three computers all networked and the old addage applies "if it's not broken don't fix it". I've no desire too change, after all these years from the DOS days to now when you have a stable platform stick with it. Vista is just another way for Gates and Co. to make further money and you'd think $50 Billion was enough.

:D

drmorbius
31-05-2008, 08:15 AM
I've just ditched Windows XP on my main PC in favour of Ubuntu 8.04 Hardy. I reinstalled my Windows license on a virtual machine using VMWare (:nerd:) so I can run those few Windows programs that I must have.

My machine now boots in 40 seconds as opposed to 3.5 minutes and everything runs in half the time. And I don't miss having to use Ctl-Alt-Del... :thumbsup:

I also use Ubuntu on all my old PC's (the 486 ones with 512M RAM) so the kids have their own machines for homework. Works most excellently!

Ubuntu is quite mature now and I think it's more a viable alternative for the average bloke (and gal) on the street.

Starkler
31-05-2008, 10:08 AM
Alls well and good if you can find software in the distributions repository to do everything what you want. If not you have to learn to compile code and become a computer 'hobbyist', as opposed to computer 'user'. Once you start down this path every kernel upgrade becomes potentially a saga of recompiling all your apps and hours of googling to find answers to fix the inevitable broken things that stop working.

For the most part, windows is windows. The libraries are there and again for the most part, things just work without dealing with a multitude of libraries requiring maintenance or command line tweaking.

Im now at a point where a needed application has had a long awaited functionality upgrade and Im stuck with a decision of forgoing it, or upgrading a 1year old linux distro that I have spent countless hours in configuring and im really loathe to go through the pain.

Solanum
31-05-2008, 05:19 PM
Work PC: SUSE 10.3/Win XP SP2 dual boot
Home Desktop: Mandriva 2008.1
Home Server: Mandriva 2007.1
Laptop: Mandriva 2008.0/WinXP SP3 dual boot
Kids laptop: Mandriva 2007.1



This isn't really true. Most major distributions contain just about every bit of opensource software that is available apart from extremely obscure things. For instance Mandriva even includes GIS software. Kernel upgrades aren't needed for software, only drivers and even then only drivers that don't play nice and require non-free kernel patches. Even then there are ways around this such as DKMS that do this automatically on boot if you alter the kernel (default with Mandriva).



Windows has just as many library conflicts as linux, if you look at the average windows box there are multiple versions of many of it's libraries. Admittedly, it doesn't have as many GUI toolkits.... Also, many linux distros will upgrade gracefully without wiping your settings. As long as you keep /home and don't format it, you can even do a fresh install/install a new distro without affecting your user settings.

Everard - desktop linux user for nearly ten years....

PS If you are a linux beginner (and I'm not saying your are!) and want a bit of advice on this, then feel free to ask. If you're an expert, feel free to tell me to shut up!

marki
31-05-2008, 07:38 PM
My machine now boots in 40 seconds as opposed to 3.5 minutes and everything runs in half the time.

Just timed my bootup including typing in the password; 30 seconds. Like I said it just depends on your hardware as long as you keep the registry in good order. Speaking of hardware and bootup time, does anyone remember the good old commadore 64 with the casette tape drive??? Load the tape and wait half an hour before you could play :rofl:. Games were good though, I had america's cup and a really basic golf game. I tried Linux once, redhat or something similar. It was just too much work.

Tandum
31-05-2008, 07:52 PM
I had DeepSkyStacker telling me it was out of ram on this 2gig Vista quad core box when using drizzle, so I stuck in another 4gig, reinstalled to Vista 64 and it still tells me it's out of ram :rofl:

I don't think it matters what you use so long as it works for you and you are comfortable using it.

marki
31-05-2008, 08:33 PM
I do not use drizzle as I have not had much success with it and find it easier to do mosaics manually but I can imagine such a response (gotta love windows :D). If he got the DSI working on 64 bit vista he has done better than me as I cannot find drivers that will work. Envisage works well on my laptop which runs the 32 bit version with 2048 kb of ram. Have yet to get any error mesages on that.

Tandum
31-05-2008, 10:24 PM
He doesn't run a DSI on a 64bit system cos HE knows better. This system is my desktop PC where I work and process images. My dirt cheap $500 XP laptop captures images, runs the DSI as a guide camera and dumps everything where this machine can see them. Drizzle in autostar is different to drizzle in dss. In dss it enhances image resolution and I have dumped the help file to explain how :-

Drizzle
Drizzle is a method developed by the NASA for the Hubble Deep Field observations made by the Hubble Space Telescope.
The algorithm is also known as Variable Pixel Linear Reconstruction.

It has a wide range of usages among which it can be used to enhance de resolution of a stack of images compared to the resolution of a single image while preserving the characteristics of the image (color, brightness).
Basically each image is super sampled just before being stacked, like twice or thrice enlarged (it can be any value greater than 1 but DeepSkyStacker is only proposing 2 or 3 which are common values), then projected on a finer grid of pixels.

The result is that the size of the final image is doubled (or tripled) and that a small object that was occupying only a few dozens pixels, will be using twice or thrice the number of pixels and will be easier to post process.

marki
02-06-2008, 11:17 PM
I am aware of what drizzle does but as the meade publications states there is little to gain using pixel fractions to oversample alone (in envisage) and they recommend you increase the size of the image at the same time. This then starts a sequence of exposures in which the telescope moves to several different positions whilst the camera takes exposures. If you use a mono camera it can take an age to get a set of frames depending on the settings you use. It also increases the chance of tracking error which will ruin the pic anyway meaning much time is wasted unless your telescope has no periodic error. Mine has and as much as I try to remove it by pec training, messing the gears and auto guiding it still does unexpected things at the most inconvenient times so I try to minimise the exposure time as much as is possible which is why I do not use it as I seem to get better pics the old fashioned way. Perhaps one day I will be able to afford a paramount ME or similar but right now everything is a compromise. By the way, Sorry about the HE thing, I just misread your post.

Mark