Had enough of windows. Are macs good for Astronomy?

[danielsun]

Hi all, I am thinking about changing to a Mac because at the moment I am using windows Vista with 2gig processor 4 gig ram which I thought would have been more than sufficient but overall it is a constant nightmare.
I am sick of it constantly crashing and freezing and not responding.
It is so unstable and unreliable that it is not funny anymore.
Every program I have may work for a couple of days then when ever it decides it gives me huge grief .
I am wondering if anyone else uses a Mac for EQMOD, cannon EOS software
PHD, and Photo shop or maybe Images plus without any trouble.

Cheers Daniel.

[mill]

Why dont you just whack Xpeepee on the lappy Daniel??
Get rid of vista.

[Starkler]

Daniel I have had similar problems to this before and there's two things you should try before blaming windows.

1: Take the covers off your pc and get all the dust and crud out. If your cpu heatsink is crusted in crud it cant dissipate the heat.

2: Run an a boot disc ram checking program and leave it running over night.

[leon]

No good Daniel, there is nothing worse when one is half way through a project or something and the thing freezes up or stops doing its job, very frustrating i'm sure, hope you get it sorted soon mate.

Leon

[rat156]

Hi Leon,

I use a Mac a lot, mainly for the image processing. Unfortunately I have to use a PC for the image acquisition as CCDSoft doesn't run on the Mac. I used to run it off a Mac using bootcamp, but that's still using windows.

I bought a cheap PC for my observatory. I use a MacPro for image processing using CCDStack (in Windows as Bootcamp), then flip back over to the Mac for Photoshop.

Cheers
Stuart

[renormalised]

Yes, you can use a Mac for astronomy. For the initial image processing and stacking you can use Keith's Image Stacker, Nebulosity, PHD and a variety of others....here's some sites you might like to take a peek at...

Keith's Image Stacker (http://keithwiley.com/software/keithsImageStacker.shtml)

Starstruck-Mac Astronomy Software (http://www.zerobyzero.ca/Starstruck/?page_id=248)

[Gama]

Throw XP on it as others suggested.
Or try the new version 7 windows.
But there is some overlaying issues thats causing these faults, but you will verify when you install XP.

Theo.

[renormalised]

If you're going to use Windoze, go for XP if you're having too much trouble with vista, but like I mentioned previously, Macs are eminently more than capable astroware platforms. As a matter of fact, professional astronomers use Unix/Linux on PC's, or Macs...they try to stay away from Windows. It's too flaky. They may use it in their offices, but not to run simulations or observing equipment. Many don't bother to use it even in their offices...why would they, given they have access to better OS's.

[danielsun]

Thanks Martin,
I have thought of going XP but I am worried that in the long run I when support stops for XP that I may have to end up back on Vista, though not sure if that's how it will work.


Thanks Geoff, I have a laptop which is exactly one year old so I will give your option 2 a go.;)
Thanks Leon, Yes It is really frustrating me.

Most of my problem is getting my laptop to behave whilst running the scope and acquiring the images, but thanks anyway Stuart.




Thanks renorm for the links, might come in handy.
Not game to try the beta version of windows 7 yet, I'll wait till the pro's iron out the bugs.

Thanks everyone for your feedback and help.
Cheers Daniel.

[Matty P]

I know the others have already said it but I'll say it agian. Put XP on your lappy. I have never had a problem with XP running all differents kinds of astronomical programs and controlling the scope. Not one glitch. :)

:thumbsup:

[Omaroo]

Hmm.. I'm not sure what might cause you to think that this is normal. Putting an older OS on it may not fix your issue. "Every program I have" is either an exaggeration to the max, or you have someting inherently wrong.

Vista has its glitches for some people, but this sounds like something more. Like many here, I've been using Vista for 2 years now and can't remember when it last misbehaved. Now that I'm running 64-bit I'll never look back. Your machine should handle Vista without a problem, given your description.

[darrellx]

Hi all,

It sounds like Chris has had a similar experience to mine. I had a Vaio with XP and everything ran beautifully. I just took possession of an ASUS laptop with Vista Ultimate. In the last 2 months, I have loaded all my software apps onto the ASUS (Vista) and to date, it hasn't missed a beat. (I hope I am not tempting fate here.)

When I say all my apps, I have VirtualDub, PCFE, Registax, DeepskyStacker, K3CCD, Noise Ninja, CS3, PaintSop Pro, AVIStack, VirtualMoon, PHD.

I also have had this loaded on a PC for 6months now, and once again, I have had now trouble with Vista.

I would suggest there are other issues with hardware.

Good Luck, whichever way you go.
Darrell

[danielsun]

[quote=Omaroo;405965]Hmm.. I'm not sure what might cause you to think that this is normal. Putting an older OS on it may not fix your issue. "Every program I have" is either an exaggeration to the max, or you have someting inherently wrong.

Yes, almost everything I run will give me trouble at some time mostly in the astro side which is what I bought the laptop for.
For example; Any of the planetarium programs I have like Starry night pro plus 6, Cartes du ciel, Star atlas pro will freeze with everything else either as soon as I connect to the scope or EQmod or after a few minutes of connection where as on the odd night things may work o.k.why? Every thing will freeze except the mouse but it will not let me click on anything.
Also PHD and Photoshop has occasional (this program is not responding)
Registax comes up with some error number every time I align where as on my wifes XP all works fine.
I have an on screen key board I cant get rid of and neither can a few techs which have tried and at start up and when I click to close again I get the (program not responding windows will close the program)
So I really don't think I am exaggerating when I say every program gives me grief.I bought this laptop specifically to run the scope, guide and run a camera which it struggles to.
So maybe something is inherently wrong.
I have always been up to date with virus protection and tried compatibility modes.

[Omaroo]

[QUOTE=danielsun;406014]

PLEASE don't tell me you run any Nortons "anti-virus, tune-up, magic-fix, I'll muck around with your registry but she'll be right" products....

[danielsun]

No, I'm running Trend micro.
First thing I did was remove norton.







Cheers Daniel.

[Aster]

Have to agree with Matt, cleaned my lappy, put XP Pro on it and never looked back.

Alexander

[renormalised]

[quote=Omaroo;406017]

Yes, I was going to say the same thing. Norton's is a dog...pure and simple. Too much trouble for not enough gratification from that pile of ****, I'm afraid. Especially on PC's.

I've pulled too many peeps out of the proverbial to recommend Norton's to anyone.

[Tandum]

It goes ok with 4x2gig processors :) Knock it back to xp and it should be good.

[Davros]

The current intell based macbook can run any winblows software. I have had my mac for 12 months or so and i love it. never crashes or freezes. I spend 90 percent of my time on the web and still havent got round to installing any virus software. I cant use my wifes new HP PC running Vista. I sit down at it but within 5 minutes i want to just throw it out of the window. It is a rotten slow buggy system that is bloated beyond all reason.

[Insane Climber]

Hello, have you considered that your computer may actually be broken, freeze ups are generally cased by a componant loosing connectivity during an opperation, Windows is gennerally blamed for such freeze ups. It may be as simple as a power plug to hard drive or cd rom not connecting properly.

Please don't take this wrong, I Hate Bill Gates Opperating system too.

[danielsun]

O.K. A bit of an update. My computer was very ill. In amongst my freeze ups I got two blue screen errors which told me it's time to see the doctor so just got my laptop back after a total clean up and now is dual boot XP pro/Vista.
Now for the test to hook it all up and see how it all runs.

[JethroB76]

Good to hear. So was it OS, spyware or hardware issues?

[danielsun]

The guru mentioned that it may have been compatibility issues between vista and some programs.

[renormalised]

That wouldn't surprise me in the least.

[TheDecepticon]

I thought freeze ups were of this nature too. Also can be caused by your power supply/battery.
Maybe its dodgy. Ask for a replacement, ***** like hell until you get a worker.
Go Unix/Linux. Way to go for stability.

[Omaroo]

That just sounds like the guru didn't know what the problem was. BSOD's are usualy the result of faulty hardware or a damaged operating sydtem kernel. I wouldn't be blaming the new system before I knew what the real fix was.