Episode 80 - Building an Astrophotography Processing Computer

 ✨ Agena Astro | 🔭 High Point Scientific | 📦 Amazon | 🌌 First Light Optics

WELCOME BAAACK to The Astrocast! Roo is back from Thanksgiving break, and ready to talk about Astrophotography processing PC's! This week on the show, we go deep on what matters and what may not matter quite as much when building an ideal comptuer for AP processing. It goes without saying - these are just my OPINIONS! You may completely disagree with me on much of this, and that's okay! Building a PC is great because you can make it a thousand different ways, and none are truly "wrong"! 

 Also - congrats to Ben for winning this weeks #socialmediastardust challenge! Finally - we end the episode with an AWESOME song! Welcome back, indeed! Remember - you can always support the show by using any of the above links to make your purchases for AP, it helps a lot! 

Have you gotten your Astrocast Merch yet??? There's still time for Christmas! 

Links from this week's show: 

PCPartPicker.com

ASI4400 MC Pro

DragonLight Mobile (Flat Panel App for iPad)

And a link to our always great sponsor and friends of the show, Dark Dragons Astronomy!

If you haven't yet, please consider donating to the show's Patreon and (more importantly) becoming a member of our private, members-only Discord!!! Shout out to our newest member, Jason!  If you just wanna be awesome, you can also show your love by buying me a coffee! This show is 100% ad free because of listeners like you, and supporters like Dark Dragons Astronomy! 

The Astrocast may make a small commission from any affiliate links used in the show notes, thanks for your support! 

Visit The Astrocast on Facebook!

Thanks for listening, clear skies!

Transcript

00;00;23;24 - 00;00;32;25
Roo
Main Engine Start..T minus ten, nine, eight, seven.

00;00;32;28 - 00;00;52;07
Roo
You are listening to The Astrocast

00;00;52;09 - 00;01;29;12
Roo
Welcome back to the Astro cast. I am your host Roo. Today is Wednesday, December 10th, 2025. So we are well into this moon. We're sitting at a, a 60% waning gibbous thereabouts. Hope everybody's been doing well.

00;01;29;14 - 00;01;59;29
Roo
Appreciate you all. Patiently waiting around and give me a couple of weeks off for the holiday. I, definitely took full advantage of the, the time away and, really enjoyed myself. I, got to spend a lot of time with my family. Got to spend some time with some friends as well. Got to see my, football team win a, very, very important game against the Rams to keep us in the playoff hunt, which made me very happy.

00;02;00;04 - 00;02;26;16
Roo
And I guess, biggest of all, I got to go up to Chicago and see Billy Corgan put on a night of melancholy in the Infinite Sadness, which was a opera that he wrote. That really was just incredible. Is the only word that I can use to describe it. We ended up driving from Charlotte, North Carolina, where we stay all the way up to Chicago, Illinois.

00;02;26;18 - 00;02;49;28
Roo
Which isn't as long as a drive as I thought it would be. About a 13 hour, 14 hour drive, depending on traffic. And we we did two days. So, you know, when I was younger, I would do a 13 hour drive in one day and. No problem. In fact, I usually preferred it. Now that I'm a little bit older, though, if if I'm one more than eight hours in a day, I don't want to do it.

00;02;49;28 - 00;03;17;19
Roo
So we we stopped at hotels along the way. There and back. So we took our time getting up. We spent two nights in Chicago. We stayed right in downtown Chicago in an area called The Loop, which was like right by the Riverwalk in the, Theater district. And we saw, Billy Corgan at the Lyric Opera House, and he performed with a full symphony with a full chorus standing behind them.

00;03;17;19 - 00;03;37;19
Roo
And they had four, opera singers, you know, soprano, mezzo soprano, etc.. Alto. I don't know all of them, but it was phenomenal. It really was. I think a lot of people went to the show expecting it to be a Smashing Pumpkins concert. I knew it was not going to be that because he advertised it as such.

00;03;37;21 - 00;04;02;10
Roo
It was an opera, and he picked, the songs that fit, in that sense. He's sang himself on four of them and including, my favorite Smashing Pumpkins song, which is 33. And, it blew me away. So me and my wife were both extremely happy with the, the show. It was really an incredible experience.

00;04;02;10 - 00;04;18;10
Roo
And just one of those things I'll be able to look back on in 20 years and be like, I was at that show. We spent way too much money at the merch booth. In fact, I calculated we actually spent more at the merch booth than we did on the tickets for the show, if you can believe that.

00;04;18;10 - 00;04;34;29
Roo
But how do you drive all the way to Chicago and not buy the hoodie that has the, the tour dates, if you will, on it? I just had to have it. So we both got a hoodie and I got a new pen. If anyone knows me, I collect pens. I don't wear pens, but I collect them. Don't ask me why.

00;04;34;29 - 00;04;55;18
Roo
I got into it a few years ago, and I'm just all about it now. But man, what a great time. Came back. We spent Thanksgiving here. We hosted Thanksgiving last year. We went out to dinner somewhere, and it was just the worst experience ever. So I was super happy, to, you know, get my hands on a turkey and cook it.

00;04;55;18 - 00;05;18;24
Roo
And it came out incredible. I used some, Alton Brown techniques and then a couple of, other techniques that I had never tried before, and it came out perfect. It was one of the most moist and delicious turkeys I know. Everybody always says that, but it really was it was it was like, it was perfect. So I hope you guys all had a great holiday as well.

00;05;18;26 - 00;05;39;07
Roo
Thank you so much, for waiting it out for a few, a couple of weeks there, we stayed very busy in the, the discord. It continues, to bring in new members each week. It seems like we get a new person that joins in, and, I just want to take a moment and welcome our new members.

00;05;39;09 - 00;05;57;08
Roo
And that would be, Randy and Ray, both joined with in the last couple of weeks. Of course, James joined before that, but I think I, I think I thank you, James. A couple of weeks back and, yeah, the discord is doing, just really, really great. I'll have a little something special about that at the end of the show today.

00;05;57;08 - 00;06;25;03
Roo
Just, one of our, long term members surprised me and the rest of us with something that I think is really cool. So I'll share that with you guys a little bit later today. But a lot of news to catch up on in the, astrophotography world, a lot of new products have been released. Fortunately for me, that's something that I can, read up on and stay interested in because we've had nothing but clouds in Charlotte since like three weeks now.

00;06;25;03 - 00;06;53;17
Roo
I mean, I literally the best I've done is I think one night I was able to see Jupiter in the moon. Through the haziness of the clouds. And that was about it. So it's been it's been rough here. We haven't had much luck at all. My previous neighbors moved out. We have new neighbors. I did adjust that light to not point directly into our backyard or side yard, I should say, before they moved.

00;06;53;19 - 00;07;09;26
Roo
So I haven't even had a chance to get out there and try to image, since the new folks moved in. But I'm hoping that that light won't affect me too much. The thing I'm really worried about is they have a hound dog, and he's got the loudest bark you've ever heard. It's a deep bark, too. You know.

00;07;10;01 - 00;07;28;06
Roo
Whoa whoa whoa whoa whoa whoa. One of those. I used to have a hound dog when I was a kid. And, I'm just like, God, let that be an indoor dog, I hope. I hope he doesn't, like, stay out there all night because he'll be barking at me nonstop. Then again, I usually don't hang out for hours at a time.

00;07;28;09 - 00;07;48;11
Roo
In my little observatory area, I like to get things up and running and then go inside and hang out, which is something that I would assume a lot of you probably do as well. But ultimately I do like to, you know, be able to sit out there and look at things especially, you know, when I'm testing out new scopes, I like to be able to, you know, take my time and not have to rush through things.

00;07;48;14 - 00;08;11;02
Roo
Luckily, I was noticing, that light was on the other night, and I was checking to see what the angle was like. I think I can put up a, even, just like a small piece of plywood or something like that, and it should block most of the light that is coming in. I figure that combined with a good long, do shield, should do the trick for keeping, most of the scattered light at bay.

00;08;11;05 - 00;08;31;19
Roo
So yeah, I wish I had more to report on in terms of actual imaging, but I just haven't really had a chance to. I will say I started on the, the Horsehead region, last time I was able to image. I didn't get a ton done that night because some clouds rolled in around two a Am, and I haven't had a chance to pick it back up.

00;08;31;19 - 00;08;56;05
Roo
But the thing I will be going for next is going to be, the Horsehead region. So. Or set in flame Nebula, obviously right there at the start of Orion's Belt. And, one of our members in the discord earlier today posted, that they were shooting that region with their, 135 millimeter, lens. I believe it's the the Rokinon 135 they were using.

00;08;56;07 - 00;09;18;15
Roo
And that is a if you haven't done it, that is an excellent region to shoot with a 135 because, you know, depending on the camera you're using, obviously, you can get pretty much all of Orion's belt and it doesn't frame up quite as nicely. But you can do Orion as in the Orion Nebula as well as the Horsehead in flame.

00;09;18;15 - 00;09;40;07
Roo
But I don't really like that framing, because it seems like it's always all the way on the edge of the frame. And it just kind of awkwardly frames up. What I personally like to do is if I'm going for a shot that wide, is I like to frame up the belt. So all attack on the llaman men taco right there, all three of them.

00;09;40;07 - 00;10;02;23
Roo
And then in the, you know, lower right quadrant of the photo have the, the Flame and Horsehead Nebula, and there's just so much hydrogen alpha signal in that region that once you, you know, start to get up towards 8 to 10 hours even and, you know, portal seven skies like I have assuming you're using a light pollution filter.

00;10;02;23 - 00;10;26;29
Roo
Of course. That hot signal just really explodes. And, you know, if you take your time and really work the processing, like, really work it. Not to the point where it's overblown, obviously, and starts to get grainy, but you will find that you can get, you know, even the very faint signal to come out of the background in that shot relatively easily.

00;10;27;06 - 00;10;52;05
Roo
This is definitely one where you want to separate the stars, like immediately before you start the processing. I'll generally, throw it in pix insight, and then I will, pull out the stars using, you know, the starless script that I always use and, pix insight. And then I will use generalized hyperbolic stretch and then start pulling out that signal, you know, piece by piece as I go.

00;10;52;05 - 00;11;13;02
Roo
So, if you've never done it and you have a really wide field set up like that, like a 135, that's just a really, really cool region to shoot. And people know Orion's Belt. So, you know, if you happen to share that photo with a family or friend, or, you know, even do a print of it, like, I've got a really cool print of that one that I made a few years ago.

00;11;13;04 - 00;11;42;26
Roo
You can just tell people like, That's Orion's Belt, right there. And that's one of the things that, you know, lots of people can recognize in our night sky. So I mentioned, new gear, earlier when we were, doing the intro. And I don't know if you've had a chance to see it or not, but, Zwo just recently released a new full frame camera, so the ASI 4400 MC Pro is a, true full frame sensor.

00;11;42;26 - 00;12;26;27
Roo
It's based on the IMX 366, Sony sensor, of course. Similarly spec to the 2600, but, a little bit better. And obviously some ways like, the resolutions 8192 by 54, 60. I'm trying to think how that compares to the 2600. Let me check. You know, I'm looking over the, the specs of this camera. And, you know, the first thing that occurred to me is at, you know, $3,000, which is the, current street, Park Street price, for the 4400, that's, you know, double basically what you see for the 2600 MK Pro for normal everyday pricing.

00;12;26;27 - 00;13;02;06
Roo
That's not counting sales when you can, you know, sometimes get it for 1250, like I did when they did the older version on sale. I don't know how well this really holds up for, for us, you know, backyard astrophotographers or even really in a home observatory set up. If you're, you know, maybe a little bit fancier, because the thing that I immediately noticed when I went to the Aps-c sensor with the 2600 MK Pro was how much more area I'm getting compared to my 294 MK Pro.

00;13;02;07 - 00;13;38;25
Roo
I mean, it it was huge as far as the region that I was able to capture, and obviously going from in Aps-c sensor to a full frame sensor gives you a much wider field of view. So your 26 megapixels is what you get on your 2600 MK Pro. And resolution wise, that comes out to about 6200 by 4200 mega, pixels, rather, whereas when you go up to the IMX 366 sensor, you go up, you know, it stretches just along.

00;13;39;02 - 00;14;04;07
Roo
It's 44 megapixels in 80, 200 by 5400, which is standard for full frame, digital cameras. That's the same resolution, really, that my, R5 has, for all intents and purposes. It just it makes me really question whether this is something that makes sense to buy the ADC is a little bit lower. You got 16 bits on the 2600 MK Pro versus 14 bit on the 4400.

00;14;04;10 - 00;14;29;08
Roo
The pixels are a little bit bigger on the full frame, which makes sense because it's such a larger sensor using very similar technology, I would imagine, compared to the, you know, 3.76 that we see on the 2600, the cooling is the same, the buffer is the same. You know, unless you have like a really specific use case for why you need a full frame camera.

00;14;29;11 - 00;15;00;20
Roo
I would have a hard time recommending this to most people, because I feel like Aps-c is about as wide as I would ever want to go when doing deep space photography, because what I mean by that is I love using my canon R5 and canon R7 for astrophotography, and I do frequently. I will use them, you know, on dark sky trips predominantly, and even when I, you know, go down to the observatory, I love to bring them.

00;15;00;22 - 00;15;31;20
Roo
And, you know, price wise, your, your canon R5 can be had for about $2,500. Now, I understand that it's not a one for one with an astrophotography camera. I completely get that in that you're not going to get, cooling in the same way that you would on a, you know, deep space camera. And obviously connecting it to a telescope can be a challenge for something like an, our, RF sensor.

00;15;31;23 - 00;15;54;20
Roo
Maybe not connecting it to the telescope isn't an issue, but, making lenses work is really what you run into an issue with because they're all focused by a wire. However, I would say that the trade offs are not anywhere near the benefits that you get from having a terrestrial camera. Because let's not forget, we can use that for all sorts of other photography.

00;15;54;20 - 00;16;14;08
Roo
Like when I was in Chicago, I brought my R7 and my kit lens with me, and I was able to get tons of really, really great shots that I just would not be able to get with my cell phone. I've got a, you know, iPhone 14 Pro Max or whatever last year's model is. Maybe a 15, actually.

00;16;14;10 - 00;16;36;13
Roo
And it's great, you know, for what it is, it's a great camera, but it doesn't hold a candle to my R5, and it never will. And that's okay. I tell you all this to say, if if you already have an Aps-c, sensor, I don't really I don't really see this 4400 is making a whole lot of sense to drop three grand on.

00;16;36;16 - 00;17;00;07
Roo
Honestly, I would probably before I drop three grand on something like this, I would get a 2600 mic air, which has everything built into it, and then use that extra, you know, 1200 to $1500, depending on when you get it, on other astronomy gear or even other lenses, if you want to, you know, go a full frame camera out and get yourself one.

00;17;00;09 - 00;17;21;09
Roo
And you know, when I say R5, that's on the higher end of the spectrum for consumer, photography, you don't have to spend you know, $2,500 to get a good full frame camera. These days, you can get great full frame cameras for under $1,000. That will be infinitely more versatile than your single, you know, deep space astrophotography camera.

00;17;21;09 - 00;17;46;08
Roo
So it's just my $0.02 on it. Take it for what you will. I personally, can't really recommend that. Like I say, if you didn't have a 2600 and you had the right set up where it made sense, you know, keep in mind, with that wide of the sensor, two things like, vignetting and issues in the corners are going to be greatly magnified because it's just such a larger sensor.

00;17;46;15 - 00;18;04;27
Roo
You also are going to have to need, you know, two inch filters for sure, to make sure that you can cover that 36 by 24 sensor. You'll need the 50 millimeter, filters. So there's a lot of little things to think about. So it's not really just, hey, it's full frame, you know, bigger sensor, more light collecting.

00;18;04;27 - 00;18;24;05
Roo
Like, yes, this is true. But there are some definite trade offs as well. And that's just something to keep in mind. So for me, I'll be sticking with my 2600. I'm extremely happy with it. And I think if I won the lottery, maybe I could see buying a 4400 and putting it on. I don't even know what.

00;18;24;08 - 00;19;02;11
Roo
What would you put something that wide on that would make sense and really, like really sell it? You know what I mean? Because I feel like with most of our modern wide refractor telescopes, they do such a great job in framing up certain areas with not just the 2600, but even smaller sensors. You know, like I can take my Asscher, quintuple refractor Astra RAF and hook up my 585 MK Pro, which is, you know, a tiny little sensor smaller than micro 4/3, and get, you know, excellent results with it.

00;19;02;11 - 00;19;19;06
Roo
And it frames up things like the Orion Nebula, the horse head and flame, the rosette, the heart Nebula. It frames all of those up really well. Now I will say the Heart Nebula in particular gets cut off a little bit with the five, eight, five. For that, you have to go to the two nine, four or larger to get the whole thing in.

00;19;19;09 - 00;19;39;26
Roo
So like, okay, maybe for some shots like that or if you wanted to, I don't know, maybe get like the entire region plus the blue horsehead that could make sense. Maybe if you want to do the heart and soul or maybe like a giant frame of the Cygnus regions. I mean, yeah, you could you could definitely get some cool shots with it.

00;19;39;26 - 00;19;57;26
Roo
But again, when you start going that wide, I just start to say like, okay, well, why don't I just hook up an 85 millimeter lens to my canon R5 and put that on amount and dither it, you know, every three frames and see how that comes out. And it just it gives me a lot more to, play around with.

00;19;57;26 - 00;20;21;27
Roo
And then obviously, I have the benefits of having a terrestrial camera, which really can't be understated. It's awesome to have a real camera to be able to, you know, practice your craft with whenever the skies are cloudy because, like, for the last three weeks here, I haven't been able to so much as, you know, think about looking through an eyepiece or, you know, taking a new photograph of the Horsehead Nebula.

00;20;21;27 - 00;20;48;21
Roo
But I've certainly picked up my new camera, and taken tons of photos, and I'm very happy with how a whole lot of them came out. I can go birding with it. I got that new 85 millimeter lens I've been having a great time with that. Actually got a, a new softbox recently, which is something, if you're into videography or photography, it basically is something that you can put your flash into and then better control the light in certain situations.

00;20;48;21 - 00;21;06;20
Roo
Really, in all situations, it gives you light when there might not be some otherwise. And I've been having a ton of fun playing with that. So I really want to, get better at portraits because I want to do some portrait photography of my father in law. Soon. So that's on the, the list of to do.

00;21;06;21 - 00;21;31;25
Roo
So, yeah. Getting a nice full frame camera, or Aps-c for that matter. Like my R7. Great camera. That's the one I started with. Can open up a ton of new doors for you in photography. That's before we even talk about things like Milky Way photography with a 16 millimeter lens, you know, or maybe go with a 50 millimeter lens and point it, you know, over the horizon.

00;21;31;25 - 00;22;03;20
Roo
Macro is rising. And get the entire, you know, Sagittarius area in the core of the Milky Way. And there's just so much flexibility that you have, with that. Or you could spend three grand and have a, you know, twice as wide field of view on your telescope, which to me, that's not attractive. Like I'll do a mosaic if I want to go that route, and I'll be able to zoom in a lot further and see a lot more detail, because again, it will be a mosaic and not just one giant frame of the area that I'm shooting.

00;22;03;20 - 00;22;20;19
Roo
So that's just my $0.02. Take it or leave it. You know, if you got one, congratulations. By all means, I think. Don't get me wrong, I'm sure it's an awesome camera and it takes awesome photos. I don't doubt that, but I just really question whether or not it makes sense to drop that kind of coin on a camera.

00;22;20;19 - 00;22;49;02
Roo
If you already have a 2600. So changing gears slightly, I got a, a really great email, earlier this week. I guess it was technically over the weekend. Now, from a long time listener of the show and a member of our Patreon and Discord. By the way, if you would like to join the discord, you can, go to Patreon.com forward, slash the Astro cast, and, we would certainly love to have you there as part of the family.

00;22;49;04 - 00;23;06;07
Roo
But Matt writes in, he says, good morning, crew. I hope you had a great Thanksgiving, and I hope things are going well with the adoption process. They are. Thank you for that, Matt. Things are moving right along, and I'll update you guys more when there's more to say. I got one little anecdote I can tell you about, but let's get back to the email for now.

00;23;06;10 - 00;23;22;29
Roo
That was, Bane saying I of course, he always loves to bark in the background whenever I'm recording, but he says I'm a big fan of what you do. Been listening to your podcast for a long time and rely heavily on it, and the info that I gather from the discord. Love the merch too. Nice job! Thank you Matt.

00;23;23;02 - 00;23;47;26
Roo
I'm looking for advice on a computer build to dedicate, to my astrophotography stuff. I'm planning to keep it strictly limited to astro related projects i.e. no gaming, web browsing, etc. I have a basic Lenovo laptop for that stuff. I'm currently using the laptop for Astro projects and it's not up to the task resulting in crashes and slow processing.

00;23;47;26 - 00;24;17;09
Roo
When I use weighted batch pre-processing or plug ins like blur, exterminator, etc.. The following is what I currently use regarding astronomy gear. He says he uses Pix, insight and AC air and a 2600 mic air with what I would assume is a telescope of some sort. All right. So, Matt, he attached an Excel sheet listing, components that he had a friend put together for him based on, minimum, and recommended requirements for pix insight.

00;24;17;12 - 00;24;40;13
Roo
And he wanted to get, my opinion on whether or not this would be, basically good for a build. His budgets coming in around $3,500. And that's not including, monitor, keyboard and mouse. And he can spend a little bit more, a little bit more if necessary. But he wants to, you know, keep it as reasonable as possible.

00;24;40;13 - 00;25;07;23
Roo
So I thought this would be, something really good to talk about on the show. So, first of all, thank you, Matt, for taking the time to write in and ask me, question about this. And there's there's quite a few things that we can we can discuss on this. So I did write back to Matt, and I gave him my thoughts, yesterday morning when I was you know, I had my couple of free hours on Sunday morning, and I sat down because he took the time to write to me.

00;25;07;23 - 00;25;35;03
Roo
So I wanted to make sure I write back as I always try to do that. But the first thing that jumped out to me, that Matt said, is that he would be dedicating this computer to astrophotography stuff. And I really want to, pause on that for a moment because I told Matt, I said, don't dedicate a computer to any one task unless it's like a Raspberry Pi or an Arduino.

00;25;35;05 - 00;26;01;26
Roo
With today's modern computers, there's really no reason whatsoever to say. All I do with that computer is process astrophotography. Unless it's like an automated situation where you have a PC that you just drop files into an NFS on network attached storage, network attached storage, and it reads that folder and then processes those things and then spits them back out for you.

00;26;02;04 - 00;26;23;02
Roo
Like that might be a case where you're like, okay, that's a dedicated machine. But if this is going to be set up on your desk with presumably a nice monitor to look at, there's there's just really no reason to keep it as a single use machine. So I don't know if, Matt games a lot or, you know, does things like that.

00;26;23;04 - 00;26;47;28
Roo
But, you know, regardless if you're a gamer or not, there's a ton of different uses that you can use a computer for. And when I started looking at the build, I just the first thing that jumped out to me is like, what a shame it would be to only use this powerful of a computer for astrophotography, because while, you know, Pix insight is obviously a very CPU intensive, program.

00;26;48;00 - 00;27;26;28
Roo
And just the nature of our, you know, particular genre of photography means that we are going to be needing a lot of data storage. You know, outside of those two requirements, you really do have a lot of room to work with in terms of, you know, specs and what have you. I I'll say, you know, without spoiling it, Matt basically has built like a very, you know, top of the line machine, which is what you would expect for $3,500 if you're building a windows PC and you have that kind of money to spend, then you should be able to get fairly, you know, top of the line components,

00;27;27;06 - 00;28;04;21
Roo
for like a prosumer level computer. So with that said, I thought it'd be fun to go through, each of these components and maybe kind of talk about how they can impact your workflow and, you know, maybe what you could stretch your budget a little bit more on and maybe spend a little bit less on if you're in a similar situation and you're looking, you know, to build a new PC, predominantly for astrophotography, I'm going to say predominantly instead of dedicated, because I don't see any reason to not have a machine that's predominantly used for astrophotography.

00;28;04;21 - 00;28;30;07
Roo
If that's your, you know, number one hobby, that just makes sense, right? But you can also use this for web browsing, YouTube watching, doing all your email. I mean, there's literally no reason not to. So, again, like I said earlier, Matt is going with a pretty high end build here. So we'll start with the understanding that for $3,500, you can build a very high end computer for significantly less.

00;28;30;07 - 00;28;52;25
Roo
I would say, you know, $1,500 or less. You can build a very capable computer that can absolutely do astrophotography processing, no problem at all. And if you're a crazy person, you can go out and just, you know, buy a MacBook Pro and, and, learn that way. I, I'm someone who actually has a MacBook Pro. I got an iPad.

00;28;52;25 - 00;29;20;17
Roo
I've got an iPhone. I don't do really any of my astro work on them. I understand that pix insight supported on the MacBook. I installed them on the MacBook and successfully done, you know, way to batch pre-processing and ran different, plug ins and and it does work fine, but there's just there's so many other things that I'm just a lot more comfortable doing in windows since I've been using it since I was, you know, nine years old on windows 3.0.

00;29;20;19 - 00;29;41;13
Roo
So I'll be, sticking to windows with the budget here, but, so Matt laid out all of the, basically all the key components that you would need, for building a computer. And when I wrote back to him, he had mentioned to me that, you know, if I sent over affiliate links for some of the items, he'd be happy to support the show that way.

00;29;41;13 - 00;30;03;18
Roo
And I said, I greatly appreciated that. First of all, because, you know, every purchase through one of our affiliate links does help keep the show ad free. But for something like building a computer, I would never ask somebody to use affiliate links because you really, really do want to shop around for these components because they can vary greatly in price.

00;30;03;18 - 00;30;35;19
Roo
And sometimes if you get, say, a last generation product versus the current generation product, you can get 95% of the performance of something like a processor, while only maybe paying 60% of the cost. So I wouldn't do that just because I would not want to lock somebody down into saying, you know, buy this processor through this link because he might be able to find a processor that can do, you know, every single bit of what that processor can do, but for half the price.

00;30;35;19 - 00;31;01;25
Roo
So that's why I wouldn't recommend affiliate links. Now, I did tell him what I would recommend doing is going to, PC part picker.com, and I will link to that in the show notes. I think I mentioned it at some point before on the show, but it's probably been quite a while. So yeah, PC Part Picker is absolutely a phenomenal resource when you're building a computer.

00;31;02;01 - 00;31;46;21
Roo
Essentially what it will do for you is let you select individual pieces of the computer, let's say a graphics card, a motherboard and a CPU, and it will return every vendor that is currently selling those items and which ones are at the best price, along with telling you crucially, if they are compatible with each other or not. So a lot of times what you will see is someone will, you know, have an idea for a new PC build that they are doing, and then they'll go to PC part picker.com, they'll enter in all of the components, and then perhaps it'll spit out an error and say, sorry, this Ram is Ddr4 in the motherboard, only

00;31;46;21 - 00;32;13;10
Roo
supports Ddr5, Ram, so please make the necessary changes, etc., etc.. So essentially it's just it's verifying that all of the components for the PC are going to work together. Quite well. Now, for experienced PC builders, this might not be that big of a boon. But if, like Matt, you're building your first PC, this is absolutely crucial knowledge to have.

00;32;13;11 - 00;32;33;05
Roo
Because if you don't know, you end up getting parts in the mail that you paid, you know, potentially hundreds of dollars for. And they're not compatible with the motherboard that you have. So really important to double check, compatibility when building a PC. And this just kind of automates that whole process for you. So I highly recommend it.

00;32;33;05 - 00;32;55;15
Roo
It's a tool that I've used for decades now. And it's free and just super easy to use. You can even save profiles and save different builds. People will go on there and they all share various builds. So like, say the under $1,000 gaming computer, you can, you know, click on somebody's idea for what the best PC is for that.

00;32;55;18 - 00;33;29;10
Roo
And it'll, show you all of the components that you need to build that computer. So what specifically for an astrophotography forward computer, is important. So obviously the first thing that comes to mind is pix insight. So Pix insight being the gold standard for astrophotography processing. We want to make sure that whatever hardware we procure, works very well with Pix insight and takes full advantage of whatever processing capabilities it requires.

00;33;29;12 - 00;33;57;18
Roo
Now, most people know that Pix Insight unfortunately doesn't natively use a GPU or graphics card, to its advantage. Much yet now I will say pix insight 2.0 is likely right around the corner, and I would honestly be shocked if there wasn't more, native GPU usage, in Pix insight two, but that remains to be seen.

00;33;57;18 - 00;34;34;19
Roo
That's just speculation. What we do know is that several of the third party tools, like the RC Astro plug ins such as blur, exterminator, Star Exterminator, any denoising software that use these types of things are absolutely dependent on the graphics card. So while it's true that Pix insight alone is very CPU intensive, that is central processing unit as opposed to the graphics processing unit, we still we don't want to forget about the GPU.

00;34;34;19 - 00;35;00;13
Roo
You never want to forget about the GPU when you're doing a computer build. And the reason I mentioned this is because, Matt had a lot of top end components in his PC build and, you know, like maxed out Ram, a huge SSD or Ryzen nine processor. But the graphics card that he was looking at was a 3060, which is, you know, technically three generations old at this point.

00;35;00;15 - 00;35;21;22
Roo
And it's a mid-tier card. The 60 series is mid tier. So I did recommend to him there were a couple little changes that he could make that I would recommend. And, I'd go with a 50 series card or at minimum, a 40 series card if you could get like a 40, 70, graphics card, that would be a good way to go.

00;35;21;29 - 00;36;02;14
Roo
Actually, I have a 40 and a 50 series card myself. I've got a 4070 super in my main, studio computer that I'm recording on right now. And then in the living room, we actually have a 5060 TI. I believe it's a TI. TI means, yeah, extra power or whatever for Nvidia. But it's a 50 series graphics card, which is their mid-end, but a 5060 is it just blows the pants off of a 3060 graphics card because, you know, with Nvidia they tend to make, smaller steps between generations now.

00;36;02;14 - 00;36;29;13
Roo
But if you go from something like a 30 series card to a 50 series card in the same series, you can expect, you know, huge benefits. So that 5060, actually, kind of shocked me how well it runs everything, because our TV in the living room is capable of 120 frames per second. That was something I was really specific about buying, because we do a lot of gaming in the living room, and, man, oh man, what a great, great graphics card that is.

00;36;29;13 - 00;36;53;15
Roo
You can do 4K gaming and, you know, 120 frames per second on a ton of different games and just can't recommend that enough. So, 50 series graphics cards. Definitely worth doing. And, you know, keep in mind, like we were talking about earlier, just because this is an astrophotography, forward computer, it doesn't mean that you can't use it for other things.

00;36;53;15 - 00;37;29;03
Roo
And even if you're not a big gamer, maybe you want to do video processing at some point. You know, consider, Photoshop, you know, which uses GPU. Consider any de-noising software that's going to use the GPUs. So there's a million reasons, to get a at least decent graphics card. Within the last couple of generations. And I would strongly encourage that to anyone, even though as it stands today, pix insight natively, is very much a CPU driven program.

00;37;29;06 - 00;37;58;02
Roo
Now, another thing that I feel is definitely worth mentioning, particularly when you're building a computer, is to always look at last generation's model, because sometimes the prices can be, you know, you can find huge savings if you buy a prior generation chip that, like I alluded to earlier, can maybe do 90% of what the new chip can do for significantly less money.

00;37;58;02 - 00;38;34;20
Roo
So just as an example, a Ryzen seven CPU. So this is like a really good, not top of the line, but very much like a prosumer model, processor. Let's just compare the Zen four, which was the prior generation with the Zen five architecture, which is the current generation. So the same card, these 7800 XT, 3D, which includes a graphics card on board, is currently going for about $365.

00;38;34;20 - 00;38;59;05
Roo
So that's the prior generation, you know, prosumer. You could definitely use it for astrophotography and gaming and pretty much anything else you could throw at it. For $365, if you look at the newest one, which I believe is the 9900 XT, 3D, but also Ryzen seven, so pretty much, you know, the same CPU, but a newer generation that one is going for $454.

00;38;59;05 - 00;39;29;02
Roo
So, you know, nearly $100 price difference between the two. If you factor in, you know, sales tax in America, it is over $100 difference in cost. And I personally would be more than happy with something like a Ryzen seven 7000 XT 3D. So when you when you step up to the even higher end models like the Ryzen nine, that's when you can see even bigger gullies between the two.

00;39;29;04 - 00;39;54;21
Roo
So definitely you know, look at the last generation models, especially if you're trying to build this on a budget. With Matt, his budget is very much high end at 35, a $3,500. But I'm telling you guys, for, you know, 1000 to $1500, you can that you can build a very respectable, computer for processing astrophotography. And you can also do gaming on it and all these sorts of things.

00;39;54;21 - 00;40;28;06
Roo
So shop around and definitely look at last year's model, because a lot of times that's the best way to save a ton of money when building a computer. Now we've already indicated that the CPU is the biggest driver of performance when we're working in Pix insight. There are definitely a couple other things that play huge roles though as well, and are just as important as making sure that you have a CPU that is up to the task of, doing things like weighted match pre-processing.

00;40;28;08 - 00;40;54;05
Roo
So the two that come to mind are going to be Ram, and that is mainly making sure that you have enough Ram. I will say, you know, 5 to 10 years ago, 16GB was kind of the gold standard for a gaming computer. If you had 16GB, you were good to go. That really has shifted in recent years to 32GB, being kind of the the standard.

00;40;54;08 - 00;41;26;15
Roo
I will say personally, I feel for astrophotography if you're building a serious rig, to handle, you know, large projects, I would strongly advise to go with a minimum of 64GB of Ram, especially if you do things like mosaics or multi night sessions. Having that Ram is crucial. You don't want to run into a situation where you're running out of, memory and have to go to swap files, and it slows everything down.

00;41;26;17 - 00;41;51;12
Roo
You want to avoid that at all costs? On Matt's build, he is actually budgeted for 128GB of Ram. Now, normally I would say, oh, that's just overkill. 64 is more than enough. But honestly, with some of the larger projects that I've been doing lately, I've been having to break them up into smaller chunks. Mainly due to memory.

00;41;51;12 - 00;42;30;02
Roo
As far as, how much storage I have available. However, if I had, let's say a four terabyte, SSD NVMe M2. God, you gotta love all these weird, weird words that they use when describing computer parts. But in any case, if you had the ideal storage and enough of it, 128GB of Ram probably wouldn't be that bad of an idea to have if you're doing, you know, really large projects with, you know, full frame cameras or Aps-c sized cameras, you know, 48 megapixels or larger in some cases.

00;42;30;04 - 00;42;52;16
Roo
So I'm going to say you know, 128GB is for kind of a top of the line machine. But I would say 64GB is really what you want to aim for. If you're running pix insight and large scale, you know, processing, that's not to say you can't get away with 32 gigs or even 16 gigs in some cases.

00;42;52;19 - 00;43;20;09
Roo
I don't think 16 gigs is really enough to, truly take advantage of, you know, very large scale projects. You're going to really quickly run into walls with that. But, you know, 32 gigs. Yeah, you can get by with that. 64GB is ideal. And then 128GB is kind of the, you know, top end you're going to be able to handle pretty much anything that you can throw at it in terms of, large scale programs.

00;43;20;09 - 00;43;47;15
Roo
Now, NVMe storage. Let's talk about that for a moment. So there's a lot of different types of storage available on the market today. So for a very, very long time, HDD, which stands for hard Disk drive, was pretty much all you could get. And these are the mechanical magnetic spinning disks that we put into our computers for storage.

00;43;47;17 - 00;44;22;25
Roo
They've pretty much remained unchanged for the last 50 years. Essentially, it's the same technology. It's gotten better, and it's, a little bit faster in some cases, not hugely faster. But mainly what an HDD is for in terms of astrophotography is going to be backing up your old data. One thing you're going to really quickly notice when you're building a PC, when you get to storage, you will notice different types of drives are available to you, and you're going to notice that HDD is hard.

00;44;22;25 - 00;44;57;08
Roo
Disk drives are significantly cheaper in terms of how much they cost when compared to a similarly sized NVMe drive. So when I say NVMe drive, I'm referring to the M2 socket, which is very common on new motherboards. I think you'd be hard pressed to find any modern motherboard that doesn't have at least two M2 sockets. The one that Matt actually picked has four NVMe M2 sockets, which is really impressive.

00;44;57;10 - 00;45;29;24
Roo
I don't think you need to necessarily get a board that supports four M2 drives, but having one that has two, I definitely, can appreciate. So what you'll want to do is make sure that you have an M2 drive that has a ample room to run your windows install, and then be ample room for a scratch drive that you can work off of in Pix Insight and do all of your processing on.

00;45;29;24 - 00;46;01;06
Roo
So like let's take a typical modern motherboard with two M2 drives. What I would recommend doing would be get yourself a 512 or 1TB M2 drive for the first bay, and that's the one that you're going to install windows on. You're going to install pics inside on. And then you can also do all of your heavy picks and site plug ins and, data that needs to, you know, go along with it.

00;46;01;06 - 00;46;34;11
Roo
You can kind of put all of that on your main C drive. Now the second M2 drive, that's the one that I would get a much larger drive. And I would say 2TB to 4TB of possible, you know, ideally four terabytes. And I'm telling you, when you start getting into large scale mosaics and multi night sessions, you very quickly see a ton of space can get used by Pix insight during the weighted batch pre-processing.

00;46;34;13 - 00;47;05;18
Roo
Segment of the workflow. So essentially you install windows on that first drive and it's kind of your, you know, workhorse does boots up all your programs and all that sort of good stuff. And then your secondary drive that 2 to 4 terabyte drive, that's your scratch drive. So that's where all of your active projects live. Any pix, insight projects, any photography that you're processing, your Lightroom install, your Photoshop projects, all this kind of stuff can live on.

00;47;05;18 - 00;47;37;26
Roo
Maybe not your Lightroom installed because that's your library, but all that kind of stuff can live, temporarily on that scratch drive. And really, ideally, you want to keep that as clean as possible. You want, the idea is to have, you know, at least 2 to 3TB of space at all time. So no matter what size project you throw at it, you'll always have enough room, to work on that project without having to move things around and delete files, etc. so once you've got those two drives, there's a third drive that you're going to want to have.

00;47;37;26 - 00;47;59;04
Roo
And this is where there's a lot of flexibility in terms of which direction you want to go in. So we'll start with the, the more basic, option. And then I'm also going to give a little bit more of an advanced option. That gives you some really cool features that you can use if you chose to go that route.

00;47;59;07 - 00;48;25;06
Roo
All right. So your first basic option for long term storage is going to be a very large, I would say eight terabytes at minimum internal hard disk drive. So essentially you're going to have usually at least six what are called Sata ports on your motherboard. And those allow you to connect devices and external drives to your computer.

00;48;25;12 - 00;48;52;16
Roo
I'm sorry, I'm saying external drives, extra drives essentially to your computer. So whereas your M2, SSD drives screw directly into your motherboard, they actually insert into a slot. And then you put a little screw in your hard disk drive. They usually have a mounting area inside the case where you can mount drives. Depending on the type of case you get, you might have room for two or you might have room for eight.

00;48;52;18 - 00;49;15;16
Roo
But these are the slower drives. But they are excellent for a long time storage because they're not things that you're actively working with, but you want to hold on to. So think like if like, I'll just give you me. For example, I don't store all of my subs from every project that I've ever done. We could debate about, you know, pros and cons of doing that.

00;49;15;16 - 00;49;43;24
Roo
But me personally, when I'm done with a project, I usually will save the, you know, the finalized stacked file from Pix insight so I can go in and rework it. But I will not save all of the individual subs unless they are from a special dark sky trip. That kind of stuff. I like to hold on to that data for, because I might want to go through and restack it and drizzle it.

00;49;43;24 - 00;50;02;12
Roo
Or maybe a new technique comes out that, you know, can bring out more hydrogen, alpha or oxygen later down the road. And I want to reprocess it basically, like anything that is really special to me, I want to hold on for a long time. So that is the type of stuff that I would put on this eight terabyte storage.

00;50;02;12 - 00;50;41;03
Roo
So think about it like this. You're processing all of your files on that 2 to 4 terabyte M2 drive as you work through them. And then when you're complete and you're done with your image, then you can move all of that data onto the very large, cheaper drive that is the eight terabyte internal drive. And just to give you an idea, in terms of, price differences, you can like right now, you can get an eight terabyte internal Seagate drive, which would be perfect for long term storage for about $140.

00;50;41;06 - 00;51;09;29
Roo
All right. So that's eight terabytes for $140, whereas an m2 drive which Minu is much faster, light speed faster than old spinning drives are, the one that you will use for your scratch drive. That's going to be about for a company like Samsung. You're looking at, you know, anywhere from 150 to $200 for a two terabyte SSD that is of the M2 variety.

00;51;09;29 - 00;51;36;06
Roo
So as you can see, you're talking like a 4 to 1 price ratio here, depending on, you know, what you get and what brand, etc.. I do recommend, going with a more reputable brand on your drives. They tend to last longer in my experience. Western Digital crucial. Samsung, these are all good, well known, trusted brands.

00;51;36;11 - 00;52;00;05
Roo
That's not to say that you can't get a really good deal on a lesser known company's drive. But if you look around and search, you can see that, you know, the prices can vary quite a bit. Like I'm looking at a King spec. I've never heard of them, but you can get their two terabyte M2 drive, which is the the same speed as the Samsung one for $124.

00;52;00;06 - 00;52;24;20
Roo
That's like, you know, $50 price difference. So the point being though, make sure that you have an M2 drive for your scratch your active work session and then a very large drive like an eight terabyte drive to store all of your important subs afterward that you want to hold on to, for long term storage. Now, the beauty is you don't have to just have one eight terabyte drive.

00;52;24;20 - 00;52;50;19
Roo
You can add more drives on as needed. And in fact, you can even get external drives if you wanted. I have, two USB 3.0 external drives, ones. One is one terabyte and one's eight terabytes, and I use those for various storage purposes. Now that's the kind of the budget entry point, if you will, into storage.

00;52;50;21 - 00;53;20;15
Roo
And I told you there are some more fun options that you can go with as well, that are definitely a little bit more, costly, but they give you a lot more flexibility and also a lot more peace of mind, because this goes without saying. But if something is very important to you in terms of making sure that you hold on to that data forever, you're going to want to back it up in more than one place.

00;53;20;18 - 00;53;48;06
Roo
And, you know, there are a lot of different options here. Obviously you could run multiple drives and have different copies across different drives. There is cloud storage that you can purchase and pay for monthly. I wouldn't really recommend that for a long term storage and astrophotography because cloud storage is expensive. And then there is something called an analysis or network attached storage.

00;53;48;06 - 00;54;21;14
Roo
And this is really the bee's knees for what you want in terms of home storage solutions for long term storage. It opens up a whole new world of possibilities for your backups. But the caveat is, obviously it does cost a lot more. So currently, there are a lot of very popular two bay and four bay NAS drives that you can get between 4 and $600 on Amazon.

00;54;21;17 - 00;54;55;01
Roo
You green is a very, very popular NAS manufacturer currently. And they sell two bay and four bay NAS drives. So the reason I keep saying two bay and four bay is how many drives each of those can hold. And I'm not going to get super deep into the specifics of different Raid configurations. But I tell you, this because you can do a Raid configuration on a two bay drive where each of those drives is redundant.

00;54;55;04 - 00;55;33;29
Roo
So in other words, if you have two eight terabyte drives installed in that NAS, you can make it to where essentially they both have the exact same data on them. And that way if one of those two drives ever fails, which if you keep it long enough, eventually it will. Hard disk drives all fail at some point. All you need to do is remove the drive that failed popping a new one of equal or greater size, and then it will automatically begin to replicate the data from the good drive to the new drive.

00;55;34;01 - 00;55;59;23
Roo
And you can see how that could be extremely beneficial for a long term storage backup and peace of mind. Now, as you move up into something like a four bay, you get lots of different options and, more Raid setups become available to you where you can, you know, have two drives that are, exactly the same, or maybe three drives that are exactly the same.

00;55;59;23 - 00;56;28;08
Roo
And then redundancy is on the fourth drive. And there's a lot of different options out there if you want to read up on them all. I would just, maybe go to ChatGPT and say, can you explain Raid and NAS to me? And there's also Reddit. Of course, you can read all about, network attached storage. There. Another, beautiful thing about a good NAS is that you can use it for a lot more than just storing things long term.

00;56;28;08 - 00;56;54;07
Roo
A lot of people will run media servers off their NAS, so like Plex, if you've ever heard of it, it's a really awesome piece of media software, that allows you to playback your TVs, movies, music, and if you have this hooked up directly to your router, remember the name is Network Attached storage. You can then access those files from any device on your network.

00;56;54;08 - 00;57;18;03
Roo
You can even set up a tunnel to where you can access those files when you are off your network. So when you're out in the wild, if, say, somebody says, hey, could you show me that picture that you took back in 2019, yada yada yada? Sure. Let me jump on to my network attached storage drive, and I can pull that up because I know that I have everything backed up.

00;57;18;05 - 00;57;50;00
Roo
And another cool thing about network attached storage is a lot of them, like the the green one that I was telling you about, not only does it have four bays for hard disk drives, but it also has two Mdot two slots, so you can basically have it cache files for you so it can very quickly load them up so you get the benefits of the faster drive, while also having the benefits of the cheaper, bigger storage that can last for a very long time for you.

00;57;50;00 - 00;58;20;28
Roo
So, you know, when I was thinking about all of this and I was thinking about Matt's build, and with him doing like a, you know, top shelf purchase, I think what I would do if I had that kind of money is I would maybe cut back on a couple things. Maybe I go with 64GB of Ram, maybe I go with a, you know, slightly lesser, motherboard that maybe has two M2 drives instead of four, and maybe I go with a Ryzen.

00;58;21;01 - 00;58;45;04
Roo
Well, maybe stick with the Ryzen nine. But anyway, cut back on a few of the little things that maybe are a bit overkill. So with all that money that I save, I can get myself a network attached storage device, you know, for $594 currently for this, you green four bay NAS and I. I'll link this in the show notes as well if you want to check it out.

00;58;45;04 - 00;59;13;25
Roo
The four bay, NAS keep in mind these don't come with hard drives, so you will have to install your own drives. On top of that, you don't have to have four right off the bat to get started. So you can kind of add them as you go. And another great thing about the new green is that it, allows you to run open source NAS software so you can, have a lot more flexibility in terms of what software you want to run on your device.

00;59;13;25 - 00;59;43;15
Roo
Most people like to run like a variant of Linux on their NES, so it gives you a lot of flexibility, and you don't have to pay, you know, monthly recurring fees. You know, this four forward bay NAS actually holds up to 136TB, which is, you know, a lot of storage. So I think it should be able to, handle most of what you can throw at it for a very, very long time to come.

00;59;43;15 - 01;00;28;21
Roo
So definitely check out, network attached storage if you are looking, for solutions for, you know, storing a large amount of subs over a long period of time. Also, just real quick, we kind of touched on graphics cards earlier, but I just want to reiterate, even if you're not a gamer, it still makes sense to get a good graphics card because while Pix Insight is CPU bound, as we've stated many times, and doesn't really take great advantage of the graphics card yet, all the third party, plug ins like from RC Astros or your blur exterminator noise exterminator starter Terminator, those all do amazing tensor flow work, with your GPU and

01;00;28;21 - 01;00;51;08
Roo
also, you know, Photoshop, any video work that you're doing, there's there's a million reasons to get a good graphics card and not too many to, get a really old one that's not not as powerful. So not to mention, like I say, pix insight 2.0 is going to be here at some point, and I'd be shocked if they didn't implement, more GPU.

01;00;51;11 - 01;01;16;28
Roo
Worthy task. We'll see what happens though. You know, that's just speculation on my part, but I think the GPU will be better used whenever. Pix insight 2.0 finally does roll out. I'm not going to get too deep on power supplies, but there are just a couple of quick points I'd like to make by a name brand. A power supply, and always buy one that can supply more than enough power for what you need.

01;01;16;28 - 01;01;38;27
Roo
So a lot of people who are building computers for the first time, the power supply is something that I mean naturally, intuitively, you would think, oh, I don't need to spend too much. It's just the plug. But, you know, it's literally what powers your entire computer. And there are a lot of cheap knockoff ones. Don't even think about going on eBay for a power supply.

01;01;39;04 - 01;01;57;05
Roo
You want to get these from a reputable dealer? You can absolutely get one on Amazon. You can go to BestBuy and get one if you have a micro center in your area, go to micro Center. It's such a great store, but don't skimp on the power supply. It's incredibly important. It can be dangerous to have a cheap power supply.

01;01;57;05 - 01;02;20;11
Roo
These things have literally caught fire. I would recommend checking out Linus Tech Tips if you want to learn more about power supplies. They have some really excellent information on there. There's a ton of great YouTube information out there that you can find about power supplies. But, you know, in Matt's case, with his really beefy computer, he's going with 1000 watt Corsair.

01;02;20;11 - 01;02;42;17
Roo
I think that's a great idea. For me, I believe I've got, like, a 750 watt power supply in my living room computer. And then I believe I've got 1000 watt one in my studio computer. Just make sure that it has more than enough to power everything that you're going to be running, including the graphics card, which is usually the most power hungry device in your computer.

01;02;42;19 - 01;03;12;05
Roo
PC part picker again, can tell you whether or not it makes sense to use a given power supply with all of the parts that you're going for. Outside of that, let's see. We talked about Ram. We talked about hard drives and SSDs, processors, just briefly on processors, I think a modern. And when I say modern, I mean last generation or current generation Ryzen seven or Ryzen nine, you should be good.

01;03;12;05 - 01;03;43;21
Roo
I've got a Ryzen seven personally on my machine. It's an eight core CPU that does a great job. Matt's looking at the Ryzen nine 9950 3D. That is very much a top line CPU. I think they're going for like $700 right now. So again, that's something that I would consider maybe going, scaling back a little bit on, the ECS, 3D, that means it has built in graphics, which is really good to have if your graphics card fails.

01;03;43;21 - 01;04;06;21
Roo
But again, if you're not gaming, you probably don't need that. You could certainly look at a Ryzen seven and get really great performance, but I'm not going to say it's not a good CPU. It's a great CPU, and it will crush everything that you throw at it. Just me personally, I would probably save a little bit of money on that processor and put it towards something like a network attached storage.

01;04;06;21 - 01;04;32;05
Roo
But again, any Ryzen seven or higher, CPU that has been made within the last four years, let's say, should give you ample performance, as long as you're covered for, you know, Ram and storage, make sure that you're doing everything on your M2 drive as far as when you're processing files and, you should be good to go in that regard.

01;04;32;08 - 01;04;59;28
Roo
Now, one thing worth mentioning to, coolers, you do have to have a cooler, for your CPU. A lot of CPUs come with a cooler. I would say most people who are enthusiasts to building their own computers, they end up purchasing an aftermarket cooler to do a, you know, ideally better job of cooling the computer than what the, included one will do.

01;05;00;02 - 01;05;18;22
Roo
There are a lot of different options here. You can go with an air cooler. You can go with water cooling. I have done both personally, I prefer water cooling. I think, with the all in one units that they sell these days, it's very, very easy to install. And you really don't have to do anything to maintain it.

01;05;18;29 - 01;05;46;25
Roo
That said, I've never built, like, a custom loop, with, you know, everything from scratch. That's something I wouldn't recommend to anyone who is brand new to building a PC. That's really for enthusiasts who, want to make something that looks super cool, and performs top shelf as far as cooling is concerned. But the reality is, you know, even with just an included air cooler, you're usually going to be perfectly fine.

01;05;46;28 - 01;06;04;28
Roo
That said, though, make sure with whatever CPU that you do end up purchasing, that it comes with the cooler because a lot of them don't these days, like particularly like I bought a, Ryzen five for my living room computer and it didn't come with a cooler. So just check and see. And again, PC part picker.

01;06;04;28 - 01;06;28;24
Roo
Excellent place to find out if you, need a cooler. I would go with a, 240 millimeter at a minimum. And ideally, like a 360 if you're going to be doing water cooling. And that's basically the size of the radiator and how many fans it can hold, you can read up in again, YouTube's an excellent resource for this for looking up what are good coolers.

01;06;28;24 - 01;06;55;05
Roo
Just make sure that you have one though, and you can always, swap that out, kind of, you know, the beauty of building your own computer is that it can stick with you for years. It can grow with you. You can swap out parts. I mean, my current machine started back in 2015 and I it's it's I don't think it has a single original part from that 2015 machine.

01;06;55;07 - 01;07;14;12
Roo
But you know, after a few years, I updated the graphics card and then I updated the CPU, and then eventually I got bored with the case and I was like, you know what? I want a bigger case to build in because I need to do water cooling on this next CPU. And, you know, over time you can swap out components and put in better ones.

01;07;14;12 - 01;07;36;00
Roo
And that's really part of the joy of being a part of the PC master race, is that you're able to, really kind of make it exactly how you want it to in cases in particular. Oh man, if you've got a micro center in your city, go to one of them and just look at the variety of cases that we have nowadays.

01;07;36;00 - 01;07;52;29
Roo
You know, when I was growing up, there weren't too many cases. I mean, Cooler Master was out there putting a lot of cases out, and then, I don't know. I don't even know who else was out back in the day. I mean, Cooler Master was what you pretty much got when I was, you know, 20 to 25.

01;07;53;02 - 01;08;13;19
Roo
But nowadays there are so many different options. I've got a cooler master case that is like a cube or almost. And that gives you just a ton of space to build. Some cases have enough room in them to build two computers, like streamers do that a lot. If they're going to be streaming video games, I'll have two computers, one to stream and one to play on.

01;08;13;21 - 01;08;34;16
Roo
So there are a lot of different options out there. I will say, just keep in mind short of airflow, your case doesn't really have any impact on the performance of your computer, so don't feel like you need to spend $400 on a case. Like, I don't think I've ever spent more than $200 on any computer case that I've bought, so don't feel like you need to go nuts there.

01;08;34;16 - 01;09;08;03
Roo
It's really just. Do you like how it looks and does it have enough room? I guess that's worth mentioning. There are different motherboard sizes out there. There's ATX, there's micro ATX, there's many ATX, and depending on what size motherboard you get, you'll need to make sure that your case can fit that motherboard, because some cases are super tiny and they're meant to go with, you know, micro ATX boards, if you were putting it in the living room and you wanted to have something really discreet, you would go with that.

01;09;08;05 - 01;09;24;07
Roo
But for us, you know, working in a studio situation like I am, I like having a big case with a lot of room to work in, and it's got a big glass panel on the side so I can see all my, you know, cool lights and fans and everything, and that's just great. So just keep that in mind.

01;09;24;07 - 01;09;51;24
Roo
Case is, very much a personal choice. So just whatever you go with, make sure that you like it, all right? I'm not going to get into peripherals too much. I will say, if you don't know what a mechanical keyboard is, look into it. Mechanical keyboards are the nice clicky keyboards, and they're not all super loud, though they are known for being a little bit more audible, than you're not mechanical keyboards.

01;09;51;26 - 01;10;18;24
Roo
But I do want to touch on, monitors briefly, because this is something that I ran by Matt when he had emailed me his list of components because he said he wasn't including a monitor in the purchase price, which is fine. A lot of people, when they're building a new PC, they tend to not include peripheral peripherals and monitors, mice, keyboards, stuff like that as part of it, because ultimately they're building the computer and you might already have a monitor laying around that you can use.

01;10;18;24 - 01;10;51;04
Roo
You probably already have a keyboard that you can use, and that's kind of the idea. But, I do want to say having a large, very good monitor makes a huge difference in your experience with astrophotography processing. And what I mean by that is being able to see my finished work on a 50 inch OLED monitor. It's actually 48in.

01;10;51;04 - 01;11;30;03
Roo
It's by Aorus. I bought this monitor God probably 4 or 5 years ago now and it is phenomenal. I love this monitor. It's olid meaning I get true blacks or the pixels are just turned off. So those dark colors really shine. You get great saturation. The vividness of the colors is just phenomenal. And it's big. It's big enough to where I can really appreciate my work because remember, 99% of people that you share your photos with, they're going to be looking at it on their 4 to 5 inch phone screen.

01;11;30;03 - 01;12;00;14
Roo
Right. And that's okay. But for you, when you're processing your work or working on it actively and then ultimately appreciating it after you're done processing it, why not do that on a large, gorgeous screen? Like, I was going through a process last week of putting together a large folder of photos for a, wallpaper or I'm sorry, screensaver app that I want to run on my Apple TV.

01;12;00;14 - 01;12;22;06
Roo
So in other words, it will flip through all of our photos for the last ten years or whatever that me and my wife been together and I noticed when I was going through a lot of this old photography that I've done over the years, how great some of my work was. And like, I'm not trying to boast, but like, I was really impressed with a lot of my wildlife shots and these sorts of things.

01;12;22;08 - 01;12;44;03
Roo
And you just really can't appreciate things when you're looking at them on a tiny little phone screen. And honestly, even like a 27 inch monitor, because I got two of those right to the left of my big OLED monitor, and they don't come close to giving me the type of visual that I get on this 48 inch Aorus monitor.

01;12;44;03 - 01;13;27;08
Roo
So I say all that like, I'm not saying that everyone can afford to go out and buy a 50 inch OLED monitor. I'm not stupid. I saved up for this for, you know, six months before I purchased it. But don't skimp on your monitor. Like if you've got a budget that allows you to have a little bit of flexibility, consider maybe cutting back a little bit on some of the very top end, top of the shelf stuff, like, you know, best CPU possible, best graphics card possible, and think about things like a really great OLED monitor or network attached storage or even if you've got a few hundred dollars left over a 3D printer,

01;13;27;08 - 01;13;52;16
Roo
which would be an excellent thing to hook up to your new computer. And believe me when I say it will pay for itself in terms of astrophotography stuff, because you can print your own baton of mass, you can print your own, shoe adapters. I mean, you can print your own autofocus pieces, you can print your own 135 cage if you want to, you know, go with the Rokinon 135 rig.

01;13;52;18 - 01;14;31;18
Roo
I'm sure that you've seen on Etsy where you can purchase, you know, 3D printed, shells. To hold those in place. You can do all that yourself with a 3D printer. So just consider these types of things when you're building your PC and maybe cut back on getting the very top end stuff and, you know, get last year's model, save $200 on that item and put it towards network attached storage, because that will give you so much rewards in the future by being able to, you know, pull up 32TB worth of data from the last ten years, like, how awesome is that?

01;14;31;21 - 01;14;50;27
Roo
And that graphics processor. In two years, it's going to be the two generations old graphics processor. But you're a yes. It's going to last for, you know, as long as you maintain it, your monitor can last. You know, I've had this one for five years now, and it looks just as good as it did on day one. A 3D printer will pay for itself over and over again.

01;14;51;00 - 01;15;19;00
Roo
So it's just something to think about. If you've got, you know, a little bit of a budget, really, really, really consider the other things that you can do with that money that will directly benefit your astrophotography experience. All right, guys, you know what I was social media star this week. I am going to be digging back since I was actually off for a couple of weeks.

01;15;19;00 - 01;15;53;12
Roo
And that gives me a very large pool to choose from. And it wasn't easy because I did see a lot of really great work over the last few weeks, since I've done the last show. But one image in particular really sticks out to me. The processing on it is just phenomenal. The colors are gorgeous, man. I love the colors on this image and you can just really tell, that the author of this image took their time.

01;15;53;18 - 01;16;21;19
Roo
They put enough data into it to where they got it, to where they were happy. And man, it's it's a great image. So congratulations to our social media Stardust winner. And that's going to be Ben this week for his M33 image. He, he actually posted this in our discord on the Astro Pictures channel. He did 15 hours on M33.

01;16;21;22 - 01;16;45;11
Roo
He did a fantastic job. And in fact, it's such a good, such a good image. I'm going to make it this week's, episode show Art so everyone, can have a look at it. Because I know not everybody is a member of our discord, and that's fine. If you would like to join, feel free to go to Patreon.com forward, slash the Astro cast, and you can join for as little as $5 per month to help support the show.

01;16;45;13 - 01;17;06;19
Roo
And, again, it's not something that you have to be a member of to get selected for social media Stardust. It's just that this image was the best one that I personally saw in the last couple of weeks. So great job on this band. I absolutely love the image. I knew from the moment I saw it a couple of weeks ago that man, that's the one.

01;17;06;22 - 01;17;34;05
Roo
So, so great. Great work on that. Keep up the good work, man. Also, just want to take a moment to thank our friends of the show and long time sponsor of the show, Dark Dragons Astronomy. If you have a need for observatory solutions, including roll off roof software for said roof flat panels, don't forget about their iOS iPad app for taking flats.

01;17;34;05 - 01;17;52;12
Roo
It's excellent. I've been using it on my iPad as of late. Then you definitely want to talk to the guys at Dark Dragons Astronomy. So I will, always have their link in the show notes, so make sure you give that a, give that a look. And, hi to Rick and Jeff. Great friends of the show.

01;17;52;13 - 01;18;14;22
Roo
I'll be making it down to the observatory as soon as we get some clear skies. Can't wait to catch up with you guys and hope everything's going well. So, guys, that is, that's going to do it for this week's episode of the Astro Cars. Now, I mentioned early on in the episode that I would have a little bit of a surprise for you this week.

01;18;14;22 - 01;18;46;14
Roo
And, you know, I will say that AI is something that I have a lot of mixed feelings on. And a lot of them are negative, I won't lie, but sometimes something is just so awesome that you just kind of gotta throw your hands up and say, you know what? That is just awesome. So a giant, giant shout out and thank you to our admin, Tim in the discord, who does a great job every day.

01;18;46;17 - 01;19;06;26
Roo
For our members of the discord. And just a big thank you, Tim. This was an incredibly thoughtful. So many nice touches in there. And look, I know it's I guys frankly, I don't care. We'll, we'll be back next week with an all new episode. I hope you guys are doing wonderful. I've missed being away from the microphone.

01;19;06;26 - 01;19;38;25
Roo
Happy to be back. And, until then, as always, clear skies. Wednesday evening, the feed goes live. Rue's voice cuts through the dark lagoon. 35 from backyards goes to mountain peaks. We're all tuned in. No time to sleep. Red dot, find his coma. Correct his game. He breaks it down like a simple never pain. The rising planets in the frame.

01;19;38;28 - 01;20;07;16
Roo
Every week we chase the sky by name. Pixels glowing hearts of lions. Thousands of miles. One state of mind. This is the Astro Cash. Where dark brings us to the light. Before the UK lies wide awake under the same sky. For the rest of May it never quiet grows on the night. The whole world's invited. This is the eye.

01;20;07;16 - 01;20;20;27
Roo
So yeah, this is the eye. So can I say.

01;20;20;29 - 01;20;44;24
Roo
Someone in Texas just snapped the heart. Said a guy in Chicago stacking flats till dawn. Belgium sharing deep sky gems while Switzerland southern train the roar of bombs. Beginners asking which way is no us old timers having wisdom back and forth. Relax, you'll get it. Just wait and see. Welcome to the family. 24 seven channels. Never sleep. I'm gonna be doing showcase.

01;20;44;24 - 01;21;15;06
Roo
Blowing up the baby, the 3 a.m.. Coffee at noon. Someone's on stream in the rising. Where? Different flag, same obsession. So what? I did a dark sky special. This is the Astro Guys, where the top brings us to the light from the ceiling to the Canadian. I is wide awake and at the same sky. No borders in the phone on fire crews on the like.

01;21;15;06 - 01;21;40;24
Roo
The whole world united. This is the Astro guys. Yeah, this is the Astro guy. So here's the road to the crew, to the glow of monitors. Party. Where the wild stars glow. Wherever you are, whatever you shoot, you're never alone under that cosmic roof. Turn it off out of the neighbors. Complain when they get me as a guest.

01;21;40;26 - 01;21;51;00
Roo
I'm always.

01;21;51;02 - 01;22;30;05
Roo
This guy's last till the destroy the, stroke cash. Never pay.

01;22;30;07 - 01;22;46;17
Roo
And I, for one, would like to welcome our new AI overlords and remind them as a trusted podcast personality, I can be very helpful in rounding up others to toil in their underground data centers. Clear skies.