I have been taking night sky images and converting them into time lapse videos over the past three years and wanted to offer a timeline of computer and Photoshop improvements to the hobby that I have seen over this period of time.
Background
I typically use 10 to 13 second shutter speed settings depending on the moon phase and target goal for the night with 3 second intervals between each image and allow the camera to run from darkness setting in to the next morning first light. The number of night sky images can range from around 2,800 to 3,500 during one overnight session depending on the time of year and the duration of darkness at the time. So, I have lots of images that I have to transfer from a camera SSD chip to my computer and then into Photoshop so I can adjust, stack and render into video to produce a time lapse video of one night imaging session.
Computers Used and Performances:
First Computer - Back in 2019 I searched for the best computer system to process my night sky imaging into time lapse videos and I ended up building an Intel i9 PC computer that was fully specced out with the best hardware to allow me to process my imaging. The computer was expensive but it took an almost impossible task and allowed me to process my work in 10 to 12 hours (or more at times) to get a final time lapse video. Processing had to be started each morning after a night session so that I could be ready for the next session of imaging. The times would vary and computer crashing and having to start over from the beginning was a common occurrence but was something that I had to deal with in order to get the final product.
Second computer - I had always been an Apple user and jumped on a 16 inch Apple MacBook Pro with the Intel i9 chip when it became available and experienced a more stable platform to process my night sky images but didn't save much on time. Between progress with Apple's hardware and Photoshop software status at the time it still took at least 8 hours but usually 10 or more hours to get my imaging processed. The positive outcome from this upgrade was that I experienced fewer computer crashes than before.
Third computer - I bought an Apple MacBook Pro with the new M1 chip to try for my processing and was happy to see that the new Apple silicone was able to drop my processing time down to the 4 to 6 hour range with rare crashes that required starting over. Good improvement from Apple but Photoshop was working to be more compatible with the new Apple silicone M1 chip.
Fourth computer - Apple 16 inch MacBook Pro M1 Max was my next computer and the combination of the fast chip and Photoshop's software advances made this system more reliable with little to no crashes and a processing time of around 3 1/2 to 4 hours.
Current computer - Apple Mac Studio M1 Ultra with 128 GB of unified memory came in a couple of weeks ago and all I can say is WOW!!! The Mac Studio was able to cut the processing time of my night sky images to as little as 1 1/2 hours. The number of images that I have been processing at this middle of Summer time of year is around 2,850 so I know that Winter time processing may bump the processing time up to around 2 hours or a little longer than that due to the higher number of images during the night. Computer crashes are history for me.
Summary:
So in a period of 3 years I went from unstable Photoshop processing that took 10 to 12 hours or more to the Mac Studio M1 Ultra that is capable of processing my images in 1 1/2 hours time with no computer crashes whatsoever. So my hobby of producing time lapse videos of the night sky has been fun but very challenging until now. The hobby has become more fun and less of a burden with the computer improvements over these past three years. It is said that the Mac Studio Ultra is intended for a specific user out there but I can say that this computer has made my hobby much more enjoyable and it certainly works for me. I hope that some find this info helpful in their decision making process. One day the computer will be so efficient that it will only take a couple of minutes to process this many images but I am very happy with the progress thus far.
Background
I typically use 10 to 13 second shutter speed settings depending on the moon phase and target goal for the night with 3 second intervals between each image and allow the camera to run from darkness setting in to the next morning first light. The number of night sky images can range from around 2,800 to 3,500 during one overnight session depending on the time of year and the duration of darkness at the time. So, I have lots of images that I have to transfer from a camera SSD chip to my computer and then into Photoshop so I can adjust, stack and render into video to produce a time lapse video of one night imaging session.
Computers Used and Performances:
First Computer - Back in 2019 I searched for the best computer system to process my night sky imaging into time lapse videos and I ended up building an Intel i9 PC computer that was fully specced out with the best hardware to allow me to process my imaging. The computer was expensive but it took an almost impossible task and allowed me to process my work in 10 to 12 hours (or more at times) to get a final time lapse video. Processing had to be started each morning after a night session so that I could be ready for the next session of imaging. The times would vary and computer crashing and having to start over from the beginning was a common occurrence but was something that I had to deal with in order to get the final product.
Second computer - I had always been an Apple user and jumped on a 16 inch Apple MacBook Pro with the Intel i9 chip when it became available and experienced a more stable platform to process my night sky images but didn't save much on time. Between progress with Apple's hardware and Photoshop software status at the time it still took at least 8 hours but usually 10 or more hours to get my imaging processed. The positive outcome from this upgrade was that I experienced fewer computer crashes than before.
Third computer - I bought an Apple MacBook Pro with the new M1 chip to try for my processing and was happy to see that the new Apple silicone was able to drop my processing time down to the 4 to 6 hour range with rare crashes that required starting over. Good improvement from Apple but Photoshop was working to be more compatible with the new Apple silicone M1 chip.
Fourth computer - Apple 16 inch MacBook Pro M1 Max was my next computer and the combination of the fast chip and Photoshop's software advances made this system more reliable with little to no crashes and a processing time of around 3 1/2 to 4 hours.
Current computer - Apple Mac Studio M1 Ultra with 128 GB of unified memory came in a couple of weeks ago and all I can say is WOW!!! The Mac Studio was able to cut the processing time of my night sky images to as little as 1 1/2 hours. The number of images that I have been processing at this middle of Summer time of year is around 2,850 so I know that Winter time processing may bump the processing time up to around 2 hours or a little longer than that due to the higher number of images during the night. Computer crashes are history for me.
Summary:
So in a period of 3 years I went from unstable Photoshop processing that took 10 to 12 hours or more to the Mac Studio M1 Ultra that is capable of processing my images in 1 1/2 hours time with no computer crashes whatsoever. So my hobby of producing time lapse videos of the night sky has been fun but very challenging until now. The hobby has become more fun and less of a burden with the computer improvements over these past three years. It is said that the Mac Studio Ultra is intended for a specific user out there but I can say that this computer has made my hobby much more enjoyable and it certainly works for me. I hope that some find this info helpful in their decision making process. One day the computer will be so efficient that it will only take a couple of minutes to process this many images but I am very happy with the progress thus far.
