I now have 3 screens running on a Windows 7 system   In the end I got all the bits necessary to build up a complete new (Windows 7) system around the new motherboard.  So the new system has the 5770 card running 3 monitors under EyeFinity and it all works fine (so far).  Two of the monitors are driven directly from the 5770, the third monitor is driven via a display port adapter – the ATI Catalyst software (and Windows 7) sees all three monitors and allows you to custom configure them to how you want to work.  I want to be able to run separate applications on each monitor – my son wants to play games with the action spread across all three screens – it’s fairly quick and easy to set up in the ATI software.

So the pain is over.  A rather radical way of adding one extra measly lousy screen to a system, but then again, Windows XP (on my original system) is coming up for 10 years old, so perhaps it is just as well I made the move now rather than when I had to.  I will post up a picture of the setup later this week.

Another clear night last night – and with the success of capturing a couple of asteroids the night before (1079 Mimosa and 2833 Radishchev I think, courtesy the Sky 6) – I went back to M44 and asteroid central once again.  This time I went for 10-minute subs with the Hyperstar III (equivalent to 1-hour subs with the Sky 90) in order to go that bit deeper and see if I could pull out some more asteroids.  A total of 20 subs later, I’ve yet to process the data but will get back later today with the results of this exercise.

Nice clear night last night and managed to get 3-hours worth of 4-minute subs on M44 with the Hyperstar III.  Bagged a couple of asteroids (I think M44 is asteroid central as it sits just about on top of the ecliptic) – will let you know which asteroids they are if any one on the Forums identifies them (I can’t be bothered looking these things up).

This month’s imaging object is a single star shot – this time I’ve gone for Regulus in Leo.  A nice bright star central to an image can make a spectacular picture, and Regulus is no exception.  Taken using the Sky 90 and M25C with 4-minute subs and a couple of hours total exposure time, this is the sort of result you can expect.  However – what I didn’t expect was to see a trace of the dwarf galaxy Leo 1, which looks like a tiny wisp of a cloud right next door to Regulus!  This was pretty much unexpected and I believe it is due to the superb contrast provided by the Sky 90 – I can guarantee that I wouldn’t be able to see Leo 1 in a similar Hyperstar III image.  It would be interesting to know whether you can pick up Leo 1 using reflectors and CCD cameras with Regulus providing it’s own unique form of  ”light pollution” in this region.

Recipe for a Regulus/Leo 1 image – good dark (Moonless) night, high contrast imager (refractor), moderate length subs, but lots of them – and possibly some good luck

Until April’s IOM – clear skies!

O.K. this is a continuation of the attempt to add a third monitor to my system saga.  Let’s recap how we got to the present state.  Bought an ATI Radeon 5770 card as it said it supported 3 monitors – great!  Not so great – for the 3rd monitor you need a display port adapter to link in to the 3 rd monitor (see the small print right down the bottom of the page).  O.K. fine I’ll buy one.  Not in the U.K. at the beginning of 2010 – end of 2009 you won’t.  However, looking at the web again in Feb 2010 I saw that Overclockers U.K. had some in (made by Sapphire) – brilliant – bought one.  Fitted to system and fired everything up – still the third monitor isn’t seen – why not?  Because the ATI Eyefinity software that allows you to see 3 monitors doesn’t run on Windows XP – what do I run?  Windows XP of course.

I am still not beaten  I knew of some software called Ultramon that works on Windows XP and is meant for multiple monitors.  Great!  And there’s a 30-day free trial to go with it – even better!!  Fired this up yesterday and – still only see 2 monitors  Clearly some way back in the software chain there is still a Windows XP/ATI Eyefinity problem lurking and Ultramon doesn’t short-circuit the problem for me as I hoped (against hope) that it would.  Or perhaps it’s simply a Windows XP problem as it only shows 2 displays in the “Display Settings” menu, whereas ATI Catalyst Centre does actually show 3 monitors, even if one of them is always “greyed out”.  Damn – I really thought I had it beat that time.

O.K. so I’m going for the ultimate fall-back position – I’ve just ordered a new motherboard from Novatech that has two PCI Express graphics slots so I can run two cards simultaneously, and therefore (theoretically) run up to 4 monitors.  I’ll keep you informed as to what happens in the next battle to add one lousy monitor to my system.

I am going to win this one – or empty my Bank account trying!

Towards the end of last year I was getting more than a bit annoyed about the lack of 3 monitor control with the ATI Radeon 5770 card.  To refresh your memory in the large print in the spec towards the top it said 3 monitor support, and in tiny print towards the bottom it said that for a 3rd monitor you needed a display port connector.  I then found (at the time) that I couldn’t get a display port connector in the U.K.  Well I recently did a new search and those brilliant Overclocker U.K. boys had them in stock – whoopee!!  Ordered one and got it today – all excited.  O.K. download the latest ATI Catalyst Control Centre and driver software and away we go.  Hmm, strange, still seem to be only able to see and run two monitors – but I can at least run the display port monitor as one of the two – so I know the hardware is all fine.  So what now?  Play around for about an hour getting nowhere and go to Google to see if I can find out what the problem is NOW.  Oh, great – this is a real good’un – didn’t see this one highlighted on the box either (although it does make an appearance IF you know what you’re looking for and type in the problem).  What am I prattling on about?  Well dear little Eyefinity – the ATI software that runs multiple (more than 2) screens – wait for it – does not work with XP!!  What am I running my main machine on?  XP.  What is my copy of PhotoShop CS3 up and configured for along with all my other critical software?  XP!!  I was highly unimpressed about the display port fiasco – guess what I think about ATI now

Pulled up EPOD (Earth Science Picture of the Day) a couple of minutes ago and unexpectedly found the NFO image of NGC1333 looking back at me.  It really is a stunning region of space and the eerie-looking dust clouds gives the image a really sinister appearance.  Thank you Jim for putting this one up today – I think it is one of our very best so far.

Lovely clear night last night, and perfect for trying to capture the asteroid Vesta now leaving the head of Leo.  46 subs at 200-seconds per sub with the C11 and Hyperstar III – image captured and processed by Greg Parker at the New Forest Observatory.  The brightest star to the left of the image is Algieba in the head of Leo.

If it stays clear for long enough, and I’m imaging in the right place – then tomorrow sometime I should be posting up an image of the asteroid Vesta which is passing the star Algieba in the constellation Leo right now.  Apparently it is only moving about 1 arcminute every couple of hours so I will need to try and get at least 4-hours on this one if possible.  I started at 9:50 p.m. and I’ll go on for as long as possible

Star Vistas is now below $7!  Even with postage from the States, you can now get Star Vistas for less than half the U.K. Amazon price – extraordinary!