BIG hard drive
Patrick J. Madden Mar 16, 2002
I now have Guide8 installed on a computer with an 80GB hard drive. This lets me install everything onto the hard drive. I have also installed the USNO A2.0 database into a directory, and 16 of the 18 CDs of RealSky into another directory. (I didn't put on the RS images closest to the south celestial pole.) Now I can can display stars to 19th magnitude to compare with my CCD images. (Usually my images only go to 17, sometimes 18). And to get a RealSky image of the same galaxy I just hit Ctrl-F6, Enter, and voila! there it is! (The computer is 1400 MHz, much faster than my old one). This greatly facilitates checking out galaxies for supernovae.
Pat Madden
P.S. How long will it be before we can put the DSS on our hard drives?!!! The rate of technological change is astounding! With DVDs it should just be a matter of time before someone comes out with a version of the DSS aimed at the amateur astronomy community.
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