Shooting Stars with Your Phone: A Beginner’s Guide to Astrophotography with a Smartphone Camera

While astrophotography may seem like something that demands a high-end camera, thanks to the recent advancements in smartphone technology it is actually more attainable than ever. Smartphone cameras can now pull back the curtain on not only bright stars but other planets far from our own, making them an excellent foray into astro-imaging for budding astronomers and stargazers.

While it has long demanded specialty equipment and top-of-the-line cameras, a simple smartphone today makes shooting the stars easier than ever. With the right techniques, apps and accessories your smartphone can take some pretty awesome pictures of stars, planets or even our very own Milky Way galaxy! In this guide, we are going to take you through crucial steps that will kick off your astrophotography venture directly from home using merely the camera on your smartphone.

This guide will dive into using your smartphone camera to capture the night sky. Among other things, you will find useful hints for setting up your phone (yes!, The dumbest ones!), Setting exposure using applications to get the best possible picture with it and even a little trick somewhere that can be used when clarity suffers. Whether you’re an outright beginner or amateur photographer wanting to break into a new form of photography, this guide will give the basics so that your smartphone can serve as nothing lesser than a pocket-size telescope through which almost supernaturally beautiful imagery of the cosmos can be attained without spending on astronomical equipment.

Astrophotography with a smartphone camera

Image Source : https://alynwallacephotography.com/

Why Try Astrophotography with a Smartphone?

This form of astrophotography is convenient in the sense that it allows you to try capturing sky stuff without spending a fortune on big cameras. You can take truly stunning photographs of the night sky with your smartphone, whether you are astrophotographing from your backyard or a camping trip.

But first, some of the basics to consider when shooting with a smartphone before we get into settings and techniques.

Night Mode Capability: Some of the latest smart phones are for night modes, which are intended to help you get results in low light. It improves the ability of camera to detect light along with enhancing sensitivity which is very noteworthy for astrophotography.
Manual Controls: The ability to set things like ISO, shutter speed and focus manually can significantly boost the quality of shots that you take in a night sky. Some of the controls above are not available in your smartphone camera app then use third-party apps.
Steady Setup: Since you are taking long exposures, it is important to have a stable setup. Stars can become wagged by even the smallest shake.

Get the Best Smartphone Astrophotography Image

1. Choose the Right Location

In the world of astrophotography location is key. The following are the qualities of a location to look for:

Low Light Pollution: The less artificial lights, the clearer your night sky images. Use apps like Light Pollution Map to locate dark-sky areas around you.
Clear Sky Conditions: Check the weather forecast, specifically for cloud cover and moon phase. The darkest skies occur during a new moon, and allow you to capture the most stars.
Seclude yourself in a darkened area of your backyard or other suitable location away from street lights and avoid added exposure to artificial light sources.

2. Tripod or Stability Gear

Hence, a long exposure shot will have to be as stable as it can get so that the end product does not become blurry. These are a few tips on how to make steadier your smartphone :

A small tripod made for smartphones: Find some that have bendable legs so you can clamp your phone onto weird surfaces.
Time or Remote Shutter: A Bluetooth remote shutter, timed 3–10 seconds to avoid camera shake when pressing the capture button.
Weighted Bag: If you don’t have a tripod, use the weighted bag or find something firm like rock to stabilize your camera.

3. Set your Camera for Low Light

Set your smartphone camera so it’s able to collect as much light as possible in order for the stars to be visible. Tips to shoot the best night sky photography:

Shutter Speed

Low Light Exposure Setting: Try a 10–30 second, long exposure if your camera app permits it. It helps in gathering more starlight, however very long exposure cause the stars to move and create what is called ‘star trailing.

ISO

Increase the ISO: Begin with 800 and scale up if you can’t see stars. Just beware, too high of an ISO introduces noise.

Focus

Manual Infinity Focus: Some smartphone cameras have manual touch to focus feature. Increase this to infinity in order for the stars to be sharp.

White Balance

Move towards the cooler side: Although you cannot develop your white balance to be too blue because then would the sky have an unnatural hue, a bit more blue – 4000K or so could help bring out stars in night sky scene.

4. Improving Photo Shots with Astro and Astrophotography Apps

This is what you can do better using an astrophotography app to get more control over camera settings and improve the image quality.

Recommended Apps:

NightCap Camera (iOS): Long-exposure, ISO and focus control for low-light shots
ProCam X (Android): Gives you manual control over ISO, shutter speed and focus which is perfect for night shots.
Star Walk 2, or SkyView (for both iOS and Android): They are not for taking pictures but to track stars, allowing you to recognize the constellations and point where in the sky a celestial object is.).

Image Source : https://www.skyatnightmagazine.com/

Here are the tricks and tips for editing astrophotography photos on Smartphones.

One of the other things that PP can do is pull out details in astrophotos and help clear up some noise. How to Retouch Photos for the Best Results

1. Increase Contrast and Clarity

Increase Contrast: Increasing the contrast is subtle and darkens the sky to further feature any stars. Many are injured by too much rear end light, so do not overdo it just to get more contrast — or those fine details may be lost in the only living thing a black wall really reflects.
Clarity: This will can add edge attribute to make the star edges more defined, it may also generate unrequired noise on your image.

2. Reduce Noise

Noise Reduction: A lot of editing apps, Adobe Lightroom Mobile or Snapseed for example have noise reduction tools. But be careful with this setting, because too much noise reduction will cause the stars to appear soft.

3. White Balance and Color Tones (Photoshop)

To make images with specific color tones, you can adjust white balance in Adobe Camera RAW or change the overall color cast after the image is processed using adjustments such as Hue/Saturation adjustment layers.

Fine-Tune White Balance: This one is for when you feel that overall tone of the sky could enhance your image by just tuning up (or down) slightly — specially in city skies which would render a purple hue.
Boost the Blues: Bumping up blues will help make your night sky more realistic and less overwhelmed with yellow from city lights.

4. Selective Adjustments

Brighten Stars: Apply a highlight local adjustment to specific stars, or even constellations with lots of milky way and no light pollution. A similar feature can be found in some apps-lo Lightroom Mobile.
Darken Sky: Slightly less exposure on your background sky can help make the stars pop without negatively affecting overall composition.

Recommended Smartphone Astrophotography Accessories

With a few essential accessories you have the ability to get perfect night sky pictures via your smartphone. Although you always have your smartphone with you, this is what some tools that are frequently recommended look like up close.

1. Clip-On Lenses

Since clip-on lenses allow your smartphone camera to take wider and more detailed photos, shooting the night sky is a piece of cake.

Wide-Angle Lens: A wide-angle lens will enable you to capture a wider field of view, making it excellent for capturing sweeping shots of the Milky Way galaxy or several constellations in one image. This lens helps make your photos more immersive and grabs a far greater part of the sky compared to using standard phone lenses.
Telephoto Lens: A telephoto lens is for your viewing of the moon or a certain constellation you want to take upclose. It enlarges ppimages full detail, but some zoom levels demand greater stability to prevent blur.

They are usually small, attachable lenses that can work with multiple smartphones.

2. Light Pollution Filter

Wash out night sky images! Light pollution can also cause detriment to your imagery especially when you are near urban areas and it has enormous street light power that brings lots of artificial illumination. There is an anti-light pollution filter that reduces reflection from artificial luminance by preventing the sky to get hazy which can be identified though as “a light-pollution” Supplementary Filter.

Color & Clarity Affect: This filter helps to increase the contrast and also maintain the natural color of stars, making your images appear clear and crisp with more details.
Variety: Not all lenses are made for smartphones; some styles only clip onto a phone or use specific lens kit add-ons. They avoid the yellow hues and oranges that are typical in urban lighting, returning a more natural dark blue sky tone.

3. Tripod

While taking a long exposure image, using the tripod is very important that despite of smallest shake while capturing any slow-shutter shot can cause blur images and for sharp stable image in low light condition we need it.

Compact and Flexible Tripods: You need to find small tripods that can stabilize your phone. Looking at the best top-rated flexible tripods that you can attach your phone to, taking pictures from uneven grounds or wrapping it around a tree branch.
Stabilization: There are tripods with built-in anti-shake systems onboard and there is also the use of gimbals which can come in very handy when it comes to long exposures. Built-in Bluetooth Remotes — Depending on the make, some tripods offer a built in bluetooth remote allowing you to shoot without having your phone or camera within arm’s reach.

4. Remote Shutter Release or Bluetooth Shutter

Even the smallest vibration, such as touching your smartphone to take a photo can introduce motion blur. Camera– A remote shutter release would be best or alternatively, bluetooth shutters.

Bluetooth Remotes: A number of small, portable smartphone-compatible remotes work at very short range are perfect for overlooking camera settings during astrophotography.
Timer Function: If you don’t have a remote, set up the timer on your phone camera (3–10 seconds) and make sure to not accidentally shake by pressing the shutter button.

5. Power Bank

Given that astrophotography shoots can go on for hours and long-exposure shots eat up battery power, this is an adaptor you might want to consider. While a power bank safely houses your smartphone over the course of an entire day.

Capacity: Look for a power bank with at least 10,000 mAh to cover multiple charges.
Portability: Opt for a small, light model that is readily stashable in your pocket or camera bag. Others even have a flashlight right in them, which can come in handy when you’re setting up at night.

All of these accessories serve to better equip you in taking clear, well-composed images of the night sky using your smartphone — turning it into a more capable astrophotography device.