astro photography

just bought a canon 350d and as i am only new to astro photographyi was wondering what type of memory i should get when i purchase my laptop

For image processing the main thing is to have as much RAM as possible. In this day and age I would say that 1GB of RAM is the minimum you should get on any new computer that you expect to be using for a few years.

Bart.

I don't know- 1GB can still work out pretty expensive for a laptop. 512Mb should be fine, even 256. Most of the image work we do is not very intensive on the hardware. Sure if you use the latest version of photoshop and XP they'll crunch your processor, but if you have an older system, say win2000 and an earlier version of photoshop 256 will work just fine.
I've been doing graphic work for quite some time now and I remember thinking how wonderful my (very expensive!)128mb/photoshop combination was when they were new.
There's too much hype regarding processor and RAM power. Sure you need power when you are working with 3d or large print format graphics, but for the most part you just don't need it. Especially considering most of the astro stuff we do is low res compared with say print work.

Oh, and be careful- choosing the right kind of RAM.

Thanks for that lads
darren

If you don't mind me asking where did you purchase your 350D and how much was it? I've been watching the market for quite a while now as I want to get one still feel there a bit expensive.. :shock:

I paid 1,000 euro for the 350d slr I shopped around for a while most places where the same he trew in a 64mb and a 256mb but if you want to buy online you can for much cheaper try www.pixmania.com but be aware that if anything goes wrong you have to pay postage to send it back ,I bought it in the camera centre in tallaght also if buying online be aware of very good imitations maybe safe to buy from walk in shop