Messages

1

PCL and PJSR Development / Re: PSFEstimation script

« on: 2013 March 28 14:09:18 »

Hi Derrick,

Which are your configuration parameters for detecting stars?


Thanks,
Vicent.

2

Gallery / Re: PANSTARRS - 2013/03/18

« on: 2013 March 27 22:44:38 »

Hi! Thank you very much for your comments!

Unfortunately, the circular structure to the right side of the comet head is a reflection of the comet on the filter. I'm working on a new version without that artifact, I have been able to remove it very well. I'll upload the new version in two weeks (I'm going on a trip for 10 days) and a brief explanation of how I did this.

Apparently, the APOD guys didn't find interesting my image...

I like the image by Gerald. But things go a lot easier when you don't have to manage with the dynamic range of the object...


Best regards,
Vicent.

3

General / Re: Photometry script question

« on: 2013 March 27 19:36:49 »

Hmmm, I should take a look at your image to see what's happening.


V.

4

General / Re: Photometry script question

« on: 2013 March 27 19:18:12 »

Hi!

It could be a problem of your focal lenght... Did you set up it correctly in the solver parameters?

Regards,
Vicent.

5

Gallery / PANSTARRS - 2013/03/18

« on: 2013 March 20 20:47:53 »

Hi,

This is a photo of comet PANSTARRS with a 20 inch CDK and a Proline 16803 from the Aras de los Olmos Observatory:



Total exposure time is about 21 minutes (22x12 sec and 33x30 sec exposures) with Sloan r' filter. At this size, image scale is about 0.9 arcsec/pixel.


Best regards,
Vicent.

6

Release Information / Re: Inverted Images with PI 1.8

« on: 2013 March 12 23:34:59 »

Another v1.8 issue,

Often when I close an image, I get this warning:

"<Warning> Corrupted shared image struture: .."

Any suggestions?

Mark

Hi,

I think this has been corrected in RC4. At least it does not happen anymore in my computer.


Regards,
Vicent.

7

General / Re: New PC: biggest bang for the buck?

« on: 2013 January 28 20:36:29 »

One more consideration... These laptops are power hungry. Mine won't last more than 90 min on battery, and less than one hour if processing (although battery is now near 3 years old). If you need long battery life you're better looking for another solution.


V.

8

General / Re: New PC: biggest bang for the buck?

« on: 2013 January 28 18:44:03 »

Hi,

I would choose the i7-3740QM, it is the lower quad-core processor. You have a quick benchmark here:

http://www.cpubenchmark.net/high_end_cpus.html

You'll find all these processors in the list. See that there is a tiny difference between 3740 and 3840, but price increase is huge. The Extreme processor will give you a 25% performance increase, but a really high cost.

The M4700 is also a very good option IMO:

- IPS panel option.
- Up to three drives (I would buy an external Blu-ray unit for 80€ and put a third drive in the laptop).
- Four RAM sockets.

Last, I would choose the cheaper nVidia card, specially if you're planning to use Linux. Anyway, it doesn't matter for PixInsight if you use a better graphics card, as we haven't GPU processing for the moment.


Best regards,
Vicent.

9

General / Re: Presentation and colomns defect question

« on: 2013 January 28 16:52:12 »

Hi Nicolas, welcome to this forum,

Please could you upload some images? Preferably a master bias, and individual light image and a master light image. I would also know the median value of the master bias and the values in those columns.


Best regards,
Vicent.

10

General / Re: New PC: biggest bang for the buck?

« on: 2013 January 27 12:55:07 »

You have other computers at lower prices, but this computer is the only in which you have all thse features:

- High RAM capacity
- More than one HDD
- IPS panel.

For me the IPS panel is crucial. I haven't it on the M6500 and, at the end, you always need an external monitor to adjust the image.


Regards,
V.

11

General / Re: New PC: biggest bang for the buck?

« on: 2013 January 27 12:49:31 »

Hi Vincent, thank you! I have had a look at it and the performance and quality looks awsome! I have tried the configurator though, and the pricing policy of DELL in my country is such that for 3000e without VAT, I can hardly get the 4700 model with the configuration you mention. But I will have deeper look into in and will try to configurate some basic version (eg no extra hard drive) with upgrades later on.

THANK YOU VERY MUCH!

Just go for the quad processor, 16 GB de RAM (2x( GB), the IPS panel and the minimum HDDs. You can easily upgrade the hard drives at lower prices if you buy them separately.

Good luck,
V.

12

General / Re: New PC: biggest bang for the buck?

« on: 2013 January 26 22:32:41 »

Hi,

I have been using a Dell Precision M6500 from three years ago and I'm overall happy with it. Some things have broken during this time but Dell customer support is good. The M6700 has some improvements that I find decisive if I were going to choose a new laptop:

- It has an IPS display. Look for reviews as they state that this display is very good.
- My computer has room for two hard drives plus one mSATA port. But in the M6700 you can put a third drive if you detach the optical drive. This means that you can have a system drive, two SSD drives for PixInsight swap (reading at 1 GB/s) and a removable drive with SED Opal protection for your sensitive data.

Other advantages I found with this computer are:

- 4 RAM modules and a maximum of 32 GB (mine has 16).
- The video card works very well, although is power hungry... I recommend to put the cheaper one.
- The aluminum casing.
- Works great with Linux.

You have the M6700 with an I7 quad core, 16GB RAM, 2x750 GB HDD and IPS panel for ~3000€ + VAT.


Best regards,
Vicent.

13

General / Time, 2nd part

« on: 2013 January 26 18:09:45 »

Hi!

I just published a new post in my blog, work in progress of a new Calar Alto image, as well as some reflections on our methodology:

http://astrofoto.es/blog/2013/01/time-2nd-part/


Hope you'll find it useful and interesting!
Best regards,
Vicent.

14

Announcements / Re: PixInsight 1.8.0 RC3 'Ripley' Released

« on: 2013 January 24 17:49:37 »

Hi,

I have been working with RC3 the whole day and, amazingly, the same instance didn't crash not even one time. I would say that RC3 is very stable. Juan is just writing now a message about the new features.


Best regards,
Vicent.

15

Gallery / Re: Orion jewels, M42, M42 and others

« on: 2013 January 17 22:03:49 »

That's the way, IMO. The critical step in HDRComposition is flatfielding, so be careful. Good luck and thanks for sharing! Please let us know if you have any further problem.


Best regards,
Vicent.