From: "Tim" <tjp314@pacbell.net>
Date: November 9, 2005 10:28:17 PM MST
To: Astro_IIDC@yahoogroups.com
Subject: Re: Camera for guiding
David:
I find I've had shared experiences to many that you've described
regarding championing Mac use for astronomy applications in a
PC-dominated world.
A friend of mine was once asked, after he'd made a plea for Macs in
his workplace at the time: "Why would you want us all to use Macs?
Wouldn't you rather have something compatible?" to which he replied,
without hesitation: "Compatible with *what*? Certainly not the human
mind!" ;o)
Nevertheless, as I slowly accumulated the funds to buy myself an astro
camera 6 years ago, I was faced with rather limited choices, and so I
caved in to a suggestion by Richard Berry, at RTMC: "Why not just get
a cheap PC for use in the field, and transfer the images to your Mac
for processing later?" I ended up building a succession of PC towers
from components to run a Starlight Xpress HX5. This was before CD
burners (at reasonable prices, that is), so I did all my transfers to
the Mac using the Zip drives I had on both platforms. In the end, it
still was rather a pain going back and forth, especially when I was
often imaging just before sunup and had to get ready for work after
putting everything away.
Now I have an HP laptop, but I just purchased a new Powerbook to try
to "take over" with my astro stuff. The HP is getting rather old
(nearly 3 years now), so I needed a new computer anyway. And now,
with Astro IIDC and other Mac friendly astro applications out there,
there's HOPE I can get "off the grid" (the windows grid, that is) once
and for all, eventually.
But I think Milton was referring to the number of Astro IIDC users who
are interested in autoguiding. I'm one of them, but I don't have an
LX200 mount (just a Nexstar GPS and a couple Tak Temma mounts), so I
wasn't figuring I'd be using Astro IIDC for that.
I bought it first and foremost for planetary imaging, and find it, in
combination with the Flea camera, to be excellent for that. The flea
also shows some promise on DSOs, and I haven't even bothered to try
the "modification" to get exposures up to 60 minutes, because of Mars
and the weather around here(!), but the tests I've done to date are
very interesting. I also have a DSI Pro, and I find that acquiring
and stacking up to 60 seconds/frame videos of faint fuzzies with the
Flea and Astro IIDC is both easier and produces better results than
the Meade and Envisage does (and I spent far more time with the Meade
than I have so far on faint stuff with the Flea). It's worked well
enough to delay my decision to replace the Starlight Xpress camera
(that I sold a few months back to a friend) with something like an
SBIG as a dedicated astro camera, which is also Mac compatible. I've
been tempted to try a monochrome firewire camera with a filter wheel,
but the megapixel firewire cameras mostly use small-pixel ccds to fit
in the same package as the VGA format chips (typically 1/4 to 1/2 inch
ccds).
Anyway, I guess I'm rambling, and it's getting late, and the clouds
just won't go away, so I might as well go stare at my eyelids!
planetarily,
-Tim.
--- In Astro_IIDC@yahoogroups.com, "David Illig" <yag@d...> wrote:
David wrote:
Photoshop? But I agree -- the Mac needs a Registax, but with a
human interface; using Registax is a torturous process.
Milton Aupperle:
I take that Astro IIDC is no use to anyone for stacking then? I'd
like to know because I'll stop all development of it if no one is
using that aspect of it. I don 't like wasting my time on features
if
no one uses them and does not provide any constructive feedback.
I have clearly put my foot in my mouth. That didn't come across the
way I meant it. How
can I prove that? Well, in addition to a Windows XP Pro laptop
equipped with all kinds of
commercial and free astronomy software -- including Registax -- I
have six Macs running
OS X. I bought Astro IIDC just a week ago to replace all other
capture and stacking
software, and after using it to photograph Mars I think it's a great
program. I installed it
on two Macs for a single camera. My FW webcam is an iBot, and I know
that you are right
about the iBot being a low-end camera. My Mars images weren't great,
but the problem
was almost certainly my lack of experience and atmospheric
turbulence, not the iBot and
certainly not Astro IIDC. I captured about 3,000 frames for each
exposure; perhaps more
were needed.
Even with my limited experience with the program, I can see that
versitility and ease of use
make Astro IIDC the clear choice for capturing and aligning
QuickTime movies. I have
never used Windows by choice, and in fact I have not used the
Windows laptop for quite
some time. I was experimenting with guiding with a webcam and
Equinox, but I have
suspended that for now. I have a new Losmandy G-11 mount for my
LX200, and I expect
to install it in my observatory as soon as an adapter plate arrives
from LeSueur Astro-Pier.
You made one remark earlier in this thread with which I take issue.
You wrote "The entire
'Mac Astro Guiding Market' isn't more than 100 users..." and I know
it's much bigger than
that. I know that because I know three Mac astronomers within 20
miles of me who are
interested in autoguiding, and I know another in New Jersey. That's
five, including me. I
also know it because of the amazing e-mail response to my little
page about "The
Macintosh in Amateur Astronomy" at
<http://www.davidillig.com/astromac.shtml>. This
is a personal web site that was intended mainly for distant friends
and family, but it
started getting hits -- and I started getting e-mails -- by the
hundreds from Mac users
who were grateful to learn that the Mac can be used in amateur
astronomy, as well as from
Windows users who said, practically in unison, "That's it, I'm
switching. I've been fed up
with Windows for a long time, but I didn't know the Mac could be
used in astronomy."
Now, one question. What do you mean by "...has preliminary support
for Auto Guiding on
stars..." What else is needed -- given that I have the necessary
hardware (Keyspan Serial
Adapter) and cables for telescope control?
Thanks. Is my foot out of my mouth yet?
David