Computer

moonshine 52

Looking for advice on computers I have a zwo ASI 034mc which has usb2 cable as most modern computers run usb3 is it ok to use the usb2 on it and how much ram is sufficient to do imaging thank you

darkmatter

USB is backwards compatible, meaning that USB2 equipment will work just fine when plugged into a USB3 port. Imaging doesn't need a lot of RAM, I'd go for 8GB. Storage space is much more important since image files can be big. Do you intend to use the PC for image processing too or only image capturing?

Jarno

moonshine 52

Thank you for your reply yes I am going to do both processing & imaging
I have a celestron LCM 114mm scope
I also understand this is in the region of
F/8 as scope sizes go
Would that be suffice for planets/DSO
Kind regards

darkmatter

Planets and DSO photography are two completely different things and require a different scope and camera. Planets are small so you need a scope with long focal length (high magnification). They're also bright so you don't need a fast scope. As for the camera, you need one with a fast framerate so you can capture those short moments where the atmosphere is stable and you get the best details, and then you combine the best photos later. Often a video camera is used so you get hundreds of images to combine.

DSO's are the opposite of planets, often they are large but faint. Here you need a scope that has lower magnification but high light grasp (low f-ratio) and a camera that has high sensitivity and can take exposures of several minutes. Doing both DSO and planet photography with the same scope and camera is like wanting a car that's fast, can carry huge loads and has low fuel consumption: the demands are contradictory.

And I'm sorry to have to tell you this but the Celestron 114LCM is not the best telescope for DSO astrophotography. To be more precise, its mount is not the best for DSO astrophotography. It's an altitude-azimuth (alt-az for short) mount meaning it moves left-right and up-down while objects in the sky move in an arc. It will track an object but over time the object will appear to rotate in front of the camera and this limits the length of your exposure. I'm not saying it can't be done but instead of, for example, 10 photos of 2 minutes you'll have to take something like 100 photos of 30 seconds to get the same result. For planets the rotation will not be much of a problem since your exposures are much shorter.

For image processing your computer needs three things:

A lot of storage because all those images eat up space quickly. 1 or 2 TB will last you a long time though.
A powerful processor. Combining your images requires a lot of heavy calculating.
Enough RAM. During those calculations there's also a lot of temporary data that gets stored in RAM. 8GB will work but 16GB is better.

Hope this helps.

Jarno