From: Perry Holcomb <hpholcomb@yahoo.com>

Date: October 31, 2007 12:51:18 PM MDT

To: Astro_IIDC@yahoogroups.com

Subject: Macs and Holmes

Milton,

Why don't you buy a new MacBook Pro or at least one of

the Intel Core 2 Duo MacBooks and write it off??

I've replaced my eMac G4 700 with a new iMac 17" and

my really old PowerBook G3 (that only had USB 1.1

ports) with a new 2.16 gH, IC2D, 13" MacBook.  The

latter will be used for my new Imaging Source firewire

cam (direct from Germany with the firmware upgrade)

and Astro IIDC.  I'm ordering the cam directly thru

the Charlotte (NC) office of TIS to get the newest

hardware/firmware.

There's a world of difference between the old and the

new Macs.  Besides, you can run Windows on these new

Macs!

Altho Apple has sent me the new 10.5 DVD ($9.95

because I ordered my Macbook after 10/1), I'm still

running 10.4.10 (8R2232) and shall continue to do so

until the 10.5 upgrade downloads have been coming thru

for a while.

Perry Holcomb

North Augusta, SC

PS:  The coma of 17P/Hughes is getting smaller in my

visual and binoc observations.  To see it visually

last night in sheer, clear conditions averted vision

worked better.  I estimate it to be 3rd or even 4th

magnitude now.  It makes an almost equilateral

triangle with two other brighter stars in Perseus. 

The comet is the lower left object.  Hope you get a

chance to see it soon!!

--- Alan Friedman <alan@greatarrow.com> wrote:

Very helpful, thank you!

cheers,

Alan

On Oct 31, 2007, at 12:27 PM, Milton Aupperle wrote:

Hi Alan;

On 31-Oct-07, at 10:12 AM, Alan Friedman wrote:

Hi Milton,

Are any of the PGR cameras capable of the FW800

data transfer speed

and is this a significant advantage? I just

started using a FW800

back-up hard drive and have been loving the

speed compared to

FW400. Took me a a couple of months to remember

that I have this

port on the new laptop!

The majority of PGR cameras are FireWire 800. That

doubles the

throughput, so you can run at faster frame rates

or larger sizes or

deper bit depth. However don't' forget that your

Laptop's hard drive

may be another bottle neck too. For example,

although the Flea2

Firewire800 camera I have here can deliver 16 bit

color 1032x788 at

30 fps (46.5 megabytes per second), my G4's Laptop

drive (EIDE

interface) can't handle more than 22 megabytes per

second, which is

about 14 fps.

However, the new SATA drives Mac laptops should be

fast enough to

handle 40+ megabytes per second

HTH..

Milton Aupperle

.

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