From: Milton Aupperle <milton@outcastsoft.com>

Date: March 15, 2012 1:08:41 PM MDT

To: Astro_IIDC@yahoogroups.com

Subject: Re: [Astro_IIDC] Astro IIDC 4.08.00 Alpha 2 Available


Hi Alan;


I pretty much always do 1384x1036 in 16 bit Mono for everything.


If you open up the "Activity Monitor" application (in /Applications/Utilities" ), it will show you what is going on when stacking.


Usually I  click on the "Disk Activity" tab and watch the Data Read rate graph to see what rate the data is coming off the hard drive. On my MBP 17" with 5400 rpm drive and i7 dual CPU, I get disk reads in the 40 to 70 megabytes per seconds, on my G5 it's 20 to 40 megabytes per seconds and my x86 Dual Core Mini never exceeds 20 megabytes per seconds.


The other thing to watch is the "CPU" column for Astro IIDC or click on the "CPU" tab. That shows you how much of the CPU's are being engaged. If they are not running flat out (> 75% usage per CPU), then the hard drive is the limitation.


If the hard drive is slow (like my Mini is), then you won't see much improvement as the hard drive is the biggest bottleneck and nothing I can do will speed that up.


HTH..


Milton Aupperle.


On 15-Mar-12, at 12:36 PM, Alan Friedman wrote:




Thanks... these images have been making the rounds.


It was hard to assess the speed improvement. I was stacking 1600x1200 pixel images in 16 bit, which always seems slow. Also, I hadn't archived the last of the data captured on Sunday so my hard drive had less than 5 gigabytes free at the time AstroIIDC was working. That said, the speed seemed tolerable, where normally for frames of that size, it is more like unbearable. So it might very well have been significantly faster.


I still have quite a bit of data from Sunday - will pay more attention with the next image.


best wishes,

Alan



On Mar 15, 2012, at 2:26 PM, Milton Aupperle wrote:


Hi Alan;


Glad to here it. Did you notice much of a speed increase at all?


Also congratulations on the "Portrait of an Angry Sun " mini web

review on Sky & Telescope too:


http://www.skyandtelescope.com/observing/home/Portrait-of-an-Angry-Sun-142774035.html


TTYL..


Milton Aupperle


On 15-Mar-12, at 12:18 PM, Alan Friedman wrote:


>

>

> Thank you for these new updates. I stacked and processed this image

> last night using the Alpha01 version. It worked just fine.

>

> http://www.avertedimagination.com/img_pages/x-rated2.html

>

> best wishes,

> Alan

>

>

> Alan Friedman

> avertedimagination.com

>

>

>

> On Mar 15, 2012, at 2:08 PM, milton_aupperle wrote:

>

>> Hi Folks;

>>

>> I have just posted Astro IIDC 4.08.00 Alpha 02 (1.2 megabyte

>> download):

>>

>> http://www.outcastsoft.com/Prototype/AstroIIDC40800A2_20120315.zip

>>

>>

>

>

>

>


Milton J. Aupperle

President

ASC - Aupperle Services and Contracting

Mac Software (Drivers, Components and Application) Specialist

#1106 - 428 Chaparral Ravine View SE.

Calgary Alberta T2X 0N2

1-(403)-453-1624

milton@outcastsoft.com

www.outcastsoft.com







Milton J. Aupperle

President

ASC - Aupperle Services and Contracting

Mac Software (Drivers, Components and Application) Specialist

#1106 - 428 Chaparral Ravine View SE.

Calgary Alberta T2X 0N2

1-(403)-453-1624

milton@outcastsoft.com

www.outcastsoft.com