Phone Astrophotography

[edgy talon]

Run DBE in siril on ur glob photo, ur clipped black at the top

[tacit summit]

Oh ok

Yeah i dont have a processing PC yet sooo

[edgy talon]

You don't need a dedicated pc for astro

[final crag]

finder scope. 8se got a tiny feild of veiw💀

[edgy talon]

Ohh

[final crag]

the guy i got it from was really generous and gave me a feild widener and coma corrector but the cameras i have right now dont fit it

[edgy talon]

Don't fit it?

[final crag]

i have one of those crappy sv105 but im thinking of getting somethin better like a 662

[edgy talon]

Send photos

[final crag]

i will later
im a bit busy w chores rn tho

[edgy talon]

Sv105 can do good planetary

Okay

[final crag]

i beg to differ
ive been trying so hard over multiple nights, cant get q single good one accept maybe my first image

[edgy talon]

Sorry my internet is VERY ass

It's leading

[grand vortex]

Moon

[zealous edge]

that is quite bright

[grand vortex]

I turned my exposure up on accident

[grand vortex]

Moon through Google Pixel 6a

[edgy talon]

I did some domestic terrorism around there

Sneaking subsonic 22.lr long rifle rounds and a suppressed ruger into Canada ain't that hard

[stray nova]

Guys

Newbie question

But If I buy a telescope and stack the photos to get better detail, how do I take the required ones automatically?

Like , darks , lights and bias

With the phone attached

Sorry if i sound clueless

I'm waiting for the three wise men day to get something

[simple geyser]

plaeides with cheap dobsonian & iphone 7

[simple crow]

oooo

smoooth

[edgy talon]

https://youtu.be/u6Zk_LQDOD8?si=HJ3FDjAONEMTvmYK

[zealous edge]

So I use an app called Astro Shader to get my shots using just a phone, it shoots a set amount of images automatically, with preset exposure lengths and iso values and whatnot that you can adjust before taking the images.

You could theoretically take flats and darks by holding your hand or some other object over the camera to take darks, and you could also hold the screen of an iPad or something, displaying solid color, over the phone to take flats.

I've never actually taken flats and darks so I'm not too familiar with the subject, but I know how they're done atleast.

[terse smelt]

i think flats are needed to stack photos using eyepeice projection (hold phone up to eyepiece), darks are mostly un needed

[spring viper]

Flats on the phone do not work very correctly, but in principle they are not particularly needed

[spring viper]

Jupiter through the clouds. Seeing was 2/10

130PDS, Redmi note 7, 25%/2100

[floral parcel]

Orion Nebula from last night (iPhone 13 and 8in Dobsonian)

[spice gale]

Wait, how?

No star trail?

And still so bright and qualitative

I can't do a photo where the nebulosity and the stars inside the nebula are at the same time

[zealous edge]

Well, they did use an 8 inch dobsonian. Very big light bucket, much more light entering the phones camera. More light, less necessary exposure time. Less exposure time, less star trailing.

[floral parcel]

Yeah what he said

[spare gale]

hi everyone, here is mi first stacked photo with a 130mm astromaster

[spice gale]

NOT BAD!

[grand vortex]

I recently got these of the .oon

[muted sedge]

the .oon?

[grand vortex]

Love the .oon

[floral parcel]

I don’t like the .oon

It’s too bright

[grand vortex]

you .oon hater! it brings out the darker craters

[grand vortex]

I tryed to use Siril Noise reduction but accidentally killed it

[wind spoke]

I platesolved it using astrobot

[vale lintel]

In trying to photograph jupiter and it’s moons I have had trouble with it being to bright what are some ways to combat this?

[terse smelt]

if the phone has some form of pro video/ photo mode then use that, otherwise use a 3rd party camera app

[vale lintel]

Any reccomendations for 3rd party apps on ios

I got a 14 pro

[terse smelt]

i dunno search pro camera

i use android

[sour turret]

Ok, it didnt come out bad, but i think it could have come out better...

[grand vortex]

That makes it better

I love it

[sour turret]

@grand vortex there are some artifacts in it that I dont like, so im going to cut it again. But I thought this one was cool.

[dark ridge]

First of all what is that and second of all what is astro bot

[sour turret]

@grand vortex my bad. I didnt realize you werent talking to me until later. Never mind me!

[grand vortex]

It okay

I've accidentally responded to people who weren't talking to me

[edgy talon]

Less necessary?

You crazyyu

You must be a light fiend

You need to get addicted to telescopes

[floral parcel]

Wut

But then the stars trail

[edgy talon]

Necessary = star trail tolerance

Unless your in a b9 and your max exposure is 2 minutes then expose for shorter

[gloomy cave]

Took this photo through an 8” SCT and my iPhone by hand 😂

[wise grotto]

Managed to get these with celestron nexstar 130slt with a phone adapter

[zealous edge]

Got this image of the great Orion Nebula using my phone of course, mounted to a Monocular, set on a cheap tripod. Idk which version I like more, I like them both.

About a second of individual exposure time, with 500 individual exposures, for a total of about eight minutes of total exposure time if my math is correct.

[tribal abyss]

All I used was a piece of stick and my dignity as it cold

These 2 images are from 3 weeks apart

[elder birch]

You might need to change the file format to jpeg/png so everyone can see them on discord.

[grand vortex]

More .oon images

Newer .oon images

[wise grotto]

I have converted them now, they should be visible

But these are the ones I captured the other night

[vale lintel]

Anyone got any free app recommendations for ios that i can use for longer exposure

[vale lintel]

Yeah I have a 14pro so for easy nights was wondering what I could try

[floral parcel]

Orion neb w/ iPhone 13 Pro and 8inch dob

[elder birch]

It can do up to 100 seconds per exposure

[sour turret]

I prefer this slightly darker version of the cold moon. Although less contrast, the details in the craters came out better

this is the first edit it did... It looks neater I think but some of the small craters at center appear over exposed

[spare ravine]

What app can I use to controll my iPhone camera for long exposure

[spice gale]

DeepSpaceCamera

If it doesn't work, then idk, I have android

[spring viper]

iPhone is not suitable for astrophotography, I use XS, but I take astrophotography on redmi note 7

If you have an inexpensive Android, then use it for Astro photos.

[iron bear]

2023 retrospective. Dso´s with the cellphone and planetary´s with sv905c

[spare ravine]

Why don’t you buy an Astro cam at this point for deepsky

Or a good dslr

[iron bear]

I'll get one by the end of this year. Should I get Artemis C

It's a little expensive here in Brazil, but I'll try to get it.

[spare ravine]

Yea, it’s a great camera

[spare ravine]

I feel for you, in Romania it’s the same, an Uranus C costs 1500lei if you buy it from their website and if I buy from a Romanian website it’s 2500

[iron bear]

Here costs 5900 (Reais) / 1220 dollars. Too many taxes for this type of import

[spare ravine]

The Uranus c?

[iron bear]

Artemis C

[spare ravine]

Yea makes sence

[spare ravine]

But did you check their website

[iron bear]

I don't think they ship to Brazil directly through their website.

[spare ravine]

Check

It ships to romania from china

[iron bear]

I checked here and they do ship here. The problem would be if the revenue taxed the camera. The price would probably exceed the price of this one being sold on the website here

[spare ravine]

Makes sense

[iron bear]

The minority is taxed. It's kind of random. The problem is that when it is taxed the price is so absurd that sometimes it isn't worth it. Things that only happen in Brazil unfortunately. The government has changed and the current government has implemented stupid protectionism for the internal market that simply does not exist

[spare ravine]

That sucks

I’m sorry for your wallet XD

[marsh sluice]

all taken with an iphone 13

[bleak niche]

its IMX294, not the best and quite old.

much better to get the Ares C

or Uranus C

[iron bear]

Uranos C nor even consider it. It has the dynamic range of a planetary camera and a small sensor. Apart from the small pixelsize. It's a planetary camera that makes good dso's, but a 294 is even better.

Ares C I have to think about. I'm at 900mm focal length, a 294 can frame m42, lagoon and other objects without having to do mosaic with my focal length. As for Ares C, it would be very close. So I don't know yet... I'll probably go with 294 anyway

[spice gale]

Please tell me what telescope did you use?

[zealous edge]

Nah ain't no way you got these with a phone, what telescope and mount are you working with?

[marsh sluice]

first with a c14 from a local observatory, saturn uranus jupiter all with my 8inch newt, moon with my old 5inch newt, ring nebula with my 16inch dob, eclipse with someones solar scope at the observatory and milky way with my phone from a b4

[spice gale]

Wow, thanks

Now my dream scope is for sure a c14

[marsh sluice]

you can still do a lot with a 8inch telescope

[spice gale]

I know, and it's also much cheaper😅

[iron bear]

Yep, it´s is. Generic 114/900mm telescope with generic eq3 motorized with onstep

[zealous edge]

Ok, that makes a LOT more sense. I was not about to accept that you got those fantastic captures with nothing but a phone lmao. Cool to see what people can do with just a simple tracker mount and a (relatively) small scope!

[bleak niche]

You don’t even own one

[bleak niche]

I think the added sensitivity of the 533 would make mosaics quite feasible

[iron bear]

Yes. I'm still going to decide... Each one has its advantages
I'm a little worried about the 533 in terms of my mount capabilitys. In arc seconds, everything indicates that easily take the 533 at my focal length of 900mm, but it would be a little easier to trail than with a 294.

Last test I did on my assembly after modifications it fluctuated from 0.35 total to 0.45 total

The resolution of the 533 + 900mm focal length set is lower. So the guiding resolution is fine

[bleak niche]

Yeah it’s iffy. You could always get a shorter scope. You’ll be seeing limited often I imagine.

BlurX can fox trailed stars, but the data will always inherently be worse off.

[spring viper]

I would start by replacing the telescope to get a 2" focuser with coma corrector and a larger secondary mirror for low vignetting.

I think with a wide-angle 2" eyepiece with a coma corrector you can achieve good results with a phone

And taking 533 for such a focal length is a bad idea; 533 is more suitable for small refractors on light mounts

[neat schooner]

Some of my best captures using my iPhone 11 and 8” dob

[simple crow]

holy moly

[iron bear]

In another telescope suitable for astrophotography, probably yes. But on mine, it's better to use the native focal length

I've been taking photos with my cell phone for 4 years hahaha
Of course I'm not going to stop taking photos with my cell phone. I want a camera to leave on the telescope so I can go back to doing landscape astrophotography when I go looking for cool landscapes to compose the sky. This way I can leave the camera on the telescope while taking photos with my cell phone

Currently I end up focusing more on dso. As I only have my cell phone to take astrophotography, I can only take one photo at a time when I go to the countryside

[magic abyss]

this looks like the godzilla monster

red

[zealous edge]

quick shot of the Messier 34 open cluster. Aside from the Pleiades, this might be one of my new favorites. It looks like a mini Orion constellation and it's adorable!!

[vale wren]

taken with phone and 8" dob

[zealous edge]

Very poor quality image of the Flame and Horsehead Nebulae, despite the poor quality, I am shocked that I could see either of these at all, with just my phone and a monocular. Horsehead is just barely visible, and the Flame Nebula is slightly more obvious.

Corrected for slight star trailing and noise, I did my best to make it somewhat more legible in the post processing.

[atomic rampart]

This is a single exposure cropped and unprocessed

[bronze jackal]

First clear night of the year but it didn't last long because within an hour of noticing there was no clouds the final boss of clouds stormed in to ruin the party 😭

[floral parcel]

Whoa

What bortle

[bronze jackal]

5

Looks nothing like that irl

[bronze jackal]

Could this be the horsehead nebula, or just a random bit of noise that is coincidentally in the same spot

[terse smelt]

most likely noise, I don't see any flame nebula and that is quite e bit brighter

[zealous edge]

By that, do you mean it looks better, or worse in person?

it's so beautiful to see dark night skies

[bronze jackal]

Worse

[edgy talon]

Red

[edgy talon]

Welcome back gangster

[edgy talon]

More integration time, hope you saved ur lights or the stack

[zealous edge]

Well, with my setup I can't really do much more than that. That's kinda the hard limit for what I can do for those two.

[edgy talon]

Noo you can

[zealous edge]

I can't do tracking, and I can only use a phone at the moment

[edgy talon]

Yee I understand I was ther3

What is ur settup rn?

[zealous edge]

If I had a nice scope with a wide field of view and atleast like 100mm of aperture I could do better I think

[vale wren]

[zealous edge]

Adasion 12x56 monocular, mounted to my iPhone 12. Set up is a small tripod with a Celestron phone adaptor. Basically, I position the target at one end of the field of view, and since Astro Shader gets confused if you try manually tracking, all I can get is about 8 minutes of exposure time before it drifts across the night sky, to the other side of the monoculars field of view. And that's with the full range too, if I zoom in more I have less potential exposure time since the object will go across the screen faster.

[edgy talon]

Position it in the middle

Unless ur binoculars r good and don't got coma

Astro shader isn't that good if it gets confused over tracking the object, probably your star alignment settings

[zealous edge]

The monocular is quite good actually, I'm glad I got it on sale. Usually over a hundred dollars. But the problem with mounting a phone to it and using that as the viewing, is the phone camera kinda gives the view its own coma, or vignette I guess.

[edgy talon]

Yee it should be good then

Could you show me astroshaders settings for stacking parameters?

[zealous edge]

Doesn't have star alignment settings at all, just an app that takes images and stacks them

[edgy talon]

Bro what

[zealous edge]

I guess I can screenshot the app lol

[edgy talon]

Then astroshader is a livestack?

[zealous edge]

Oh wait no

I thought you meant polar alignment lol

[edgy talon]

No like it aligns the stars in the images to get it right then it stacks them

[zealous edge]

Yeah it does that

Basically, the reason why it gets confused if you try manually tracking, is that it recognizes the direction that stars are moving across the screen, and once all the exposures are taken, it lines up every exposure after the first one, with the first one.

[edgy talon]

Yee the first one

You are taking calibration frames too right

[zealous edge]

If you realign to manually track, it sees that suddenly, these stars are now in an entirely different position, and it doesn't know what to do, so it tries stacking from that new location instead. Basically, you end up with a bunch of areas of imaging around the screen, looking like duplicates of the same dso

[edgy talon]

I encourage you to use dss as soon as you get a computer

[zealous edge]

I don't actually, but that's only because I'm using a phone camera, and ultimately they wouldn't help very much if at all, considering the poor camera specs for what I'm trying to do with it.

[zealous edge]

Oh my god yeah, I would go absolutely nuts with DSS

[edgy talon]

Ehh taking darks and bias frames wouldn't hurt anything

[zealous edge]

Astroshader doesn't let you stack things just from your camera roll, so you're limited to what it captures per capture session. So if you set it to 300 exposures, 0.5 seconds each, you can only use those. You can't add data from previous sessions, unfortunately.

It is, however, the only app I've ever found on the AppStore that does image stacking for the specific purpose of astrophotography. So it's all I got at the moment.

This is the interface, to answer your question from earlier

Idk what pixel binning means, but you can adjust exposure time, number of exposures, iso, many things. Then once you press the photo button, it takes the exposures based on the settings.

[edgy talon]

Pixel binning.makes ur pixels bigger

Comvines them

[zealous edge]

Ah ok

So maybe not the best thing

[elder birch]

This is pretty much spot on. A few people have requested a manual tracking (or realignment feature) so will try to get something out later this year.
There is a trade-off of accuracy vs precision when live stacking like this, as it has to do quite a lot of processing in real time. At the minute it’s biased towards precision

[zealous edge]

Oh hey it's literally the AstroShader dev!

I did not think you were discord active lol

[elder birch]

On and off as time allows me!

[zealous edge]

Aight!

[elder birch]

Couple of things I would try for your flame + horsehead monocular shot;
Crank the iso higher than you might think, it’s easier to remove the background/noise later and there’s a slight benefit to higher iso for dim objects. Then try the calibration slider this is basically a dark frame simulator without needing to shoot a dark frame.
Try pixel binning. Generally I’ve found iPhones oversample images so it often produces a better image (but not always, worth testing).
The streak over Alnitak makes me think the lens had a smudge (this gets me every time too)

[zealous edge]

I do actually use maximum ISO for pretty much everything, I do all my post processing stuff to correct for slight star trailing and noise. I've found all the editing sliders once the image is done stacking to be quite useful at bringing out all the details, I'll try to remember to try pixel binning next time I go out to do astro stuff. I think the smudge might just be light diffraction, I always clean my lens with a microfiber cloth before doing this stuff. Thankful for the advice regardless though!

If it piques your curiosity, your app treats the Orion Nebula quite nicely.

(you can see the diffraction spikes more consistently with this one)

[elder birch]

Ah ok haha, sounds like you’re already doing everything I would.

[elder birch]

Nice. Running man in there too!
Interesting regarding the diffraction spikes. A CN user messaged regarding a similar issue and it turned out to be microlensing other some other optical imperfections in the iPhone (from the analysis of people far more knowledgeable than me) - but I’ve not seen anything like on your images. I’ll see if I can uncover anything useful

[zealous edge]

Huh ok, neat! I've always pondered on what really causes it, since diffraction spikes tend to be caused by the spider of a reflector telescope, or what kind of mask you have on a refractor. If a reflector has four struts, the stars will have four spikes. If there's three struts, six spikes. If you have a magic reflector with no struts and a floating secondary mirror, no spikes. I have no struts and no mask either, yet it still gets diffraction spikes as if there were.

You're probably right about the optical imperfections in the camera, because when I look through the monocular by itself without the phone attached, it does not create diffraction spikes in the stars.

[elder birch]

I’m not 100% and there are other issues that might cause this.
…I get triangular stars with one of the cameras on my iPhone 🫠

[zealous edge]

Where'd the image go

I saw the link there and then it disappeared

[elder birch]

This was my best effort with a 8x42mm monocular. 150x1s exposures (2.5mins).
Quite like shooting with a setup that’s fits in my pockets including mini tripod 😅

[zealous edge]

triangular stars, while very not great with larger setups, are atleast easier to negate if you're just shooting with a phone lol

[elder birch]

Formatting issues - it’s back now

[zealous edge]

lower resolution should atleast round the triangles out a bit

[zealous edge]

Oh I see it now

[elder birch]

Haha true

[zealous edge]

That's not bad! About the same amount of clarity as my capture, although I do like the colors in yours better, more comparable to the real colors of the Orion Nebula.

And you have an advantage with the smaller monocular, wider field of view allows for more time to let the object go across the sky, so you get more exposure time. My good image of Orion was about eight minutes of exposure, you could definitely get a lot more out of Orion I think.

[elder birch]

Yes - the wider field of view really helps.

I really think some realignment process for untracked would be interesting.
For example be able to shoot a 20min exposure and realigning every few mins.

[zealous edge]

I would absolutely have the patience to shoot an hour of exposure time, granted the realignment didn't confuse the tracking.

[iron bear]

Lagoon Nebula

• reprocessing with new tools

📋Exif
114/900, with modified eq3
Xiaomi 12. 20x55s ISO 400
Bortle 4, Munhoz MG
https://www.astrobin.com/mxmv1q/

[floral parcel]

How tf

[zealous edge]

He uses a 114/900 reflector with a tracker, and has his phone hooked up to the eyepiece, that's how, I think

Also he lives in a really good bortle area too, that definitely helps a huge lot

[edgy talon]

His phone has an actual sensor

[knotty mica]

All phones have sensors, that’s how cameras work.

[patent zodiac]

He means a proper sensor that some dedicated astro cams haave

[floral parcel]

Damn

[simple crow]

How can a xiaomi 12 have an astro cam level sensor

[terse smelt]

the manufacturers put one in

[simple crow]

How does that fit

It uses a Sony's IMX766

I can't find any astrocam with that sensor

[golden summit]

[edgy talon]

Chinese kids

[patent zodiac]

I mean it is a big sensor for a phone

[zealous edge]

Oh my good lord

That's the size of the camera on that phone model

That is absolutely mental, no wonder he takes such good images using his phone

It's basically cheating at that point lmfao

[simple crow]

Massive

Damn a 1 inch CMOS???

[zealous edge]

It looks like an actual full size camera lol

[simple crow]

Holy damn

[zealous edge]

that's insane

[simple crow]

The outer rim looks like it's just flashlight and stuff

[simple crow]

Flashlight

And stuff

[zealous edge]

Yeah but that inner circle is the full aperture I think

which is still enormous compared to most if not all other phone cameras

[simple crow]

But the glass bit

I like tiny

That dot

Idk I'm not an expert

[zealous edge]

I think that's the sensor bit, but the area around it is the full light capturing portion

This part I think

[elder birch]

Oh wow it’s a Leica camera on the phone. OK that is actually very cool

[zealous edge]

Well yeah, post processing is good for any image, really.

[crisp river]

Can i get astro shader app in android

[terse smelt]

nope

[wind spoke]

Is there any other app which can be used to stack images in phone

[terse smelt]

I think open live stacker

[smoky scaffold]

nope

[edgy talon]

Pro mode is better tbh

[edgy talon]

Just get a laptop and do deep sky stacker 😭😭

[terse smelt]

????

[patent zodiac]

I dont have a samsung so fine by me

Instead of astroshader i use deepskycamera

[edgy talon]

There's no ai on android pro mode 😭😭

No?

[edgy talon]

What evidence do you have to support your claim

Yeah that's compression

Yes, yes it did

Iphones compress photos too

Stars look like that due to compression

🤦 yes they do without a lossless format

Discord compresses previews to

[edgy talon]

These r jpg stars, compare them to other imgs and you'll see

[hot hedge]

10" manual Dobsonian with a 6mm plossl and Galaxy S20 Ultra, back when i was green and trying to learn Planetary Imaging. I think this was the capture - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ds5qwE6ryD4 All the best Damo

[golden summit]

Shit holy

You captured the outer "cassini division"

[grand vortex]

Those trees look a lot like mine

When it's cropped

[hot hedge]

Yeah it was a nice night.....

[terse smelt]

holy heck to the 5th power

[elder birch]

Haha sorry need a bit of time… Still finishing it off on iOS

[hot hedge]

Very kind of you to say

[edgy talon]

Very nice and well done on getting the Enke division!

Just get a laptop and deep sky stacker for the love of god

[zealous edge]

NEVER

(tbf I would like a computer but they are many much dollars)

[edgy talon]

Then suffer.

[zealous edge]

I'm good at doing that

[edgy talon]

Yed

Cheap 4gb ram laptops r alright

[idle thistle]

Photo of The LMC in the top left corner. The big glowy bit in the centre is just glow from Gamma Hydrae I think

You can even see the Milky Way at the right hand side

There’s a photo that’s slightly more comfortable on the eyes

And one that’s doctored

[terse smelt]

just go on craigslist or something, i did a search for laptop and got several laptops under 150, and given deepskystacker works on windows xp that lowers the barrier to entry quite a bit

[zealous edge]

I'll try and look into it

[edgy talon]

Get dss for the love of God

[wind spoke]

I me poor bro 🥲

[edgy talon]

Yee it cool

[fiery rover]

read his name...😆

😆😆😆 I'm glad we understand eachother

[raven tiger]

First jupiter

[north spindle]

45 minute drive from vacation hotel was a b2, only had phone and tripod, but b2 is just... wow

You can see the dark side of the MW in the bottom of image 2

[sour siren]

Some of the few that actually came out half decent 🤷‍♂️

[elder birch]

Flame and horse head in the first image. Nice!!

[bronze jackal]

Big Dippah

Including a special guest photobomb of grimsby light pollution dome

[red fulcrum]

Guys, look at this picture I took with my phone😱

[floral parcel]

That’s quite the long camera holder you got there

[terse smelt]

no they just threw it really hard

[iron bear]

Some shots from now. Xiaomi 12, 20s ISO 800
Piracicaba, Brazil. Bortle 5

[bronze jackal]

What is going on in that 2nd image

Confusing ahh perspective

[iron bear]

It's basically the hole where the elevator goes through. The top is where the telescopes are located

[proven surge]

you guys got any advice for the best iphone app to use for astrophotography? i got an 8” dob from skywatcher that i use with my iphone and a phone adapter

[crisp river]

15 pictures first every for Startrails

[zealous edge]

These are really nice looking images actually

They almost have a liminal space feel to them

ESPECIALLY that second one

[spice peak]

True

[edgy talon]

Good job in mega nerd b-dawg

[edgy talon]

Search up "player-one astronomy" find a uranus-c, buy

[elder birch]

Biased opinion… but I’m making an app currently in public beta called AstroShader (it’s free).
It’s under active development so any feedback is welcomed.

As other people may tell you there are limits on what a smartphone can do. But is easy to get started

[proven surge]

i’ve used it a couple of times but im not sure if my settings are correct but maybe im just expecting too much from my phone… could you share your recommended settings for lets say photographing the orion nebula?

[elder birch]

Assuming you’re on an 8” Dob, untracked, something like 0.5second exposures, 50 exposures (or as many as you can get before the target drifts from the FOV), ISO 3000-5000.
It’s easier to se the focus with a lower exposure time (0.1 seconds) and high ISO using a bright star.
Word of caution with the above it’s worth playing with the settings a fair bit as there are many local factors to account for.

Something else to bear in mind is the editing this is really where the image comes out (not specific to smartphone astrophotography).

If it’s not working at all feel free to shoot me a DM as it may be there’s a bug or some other issue!

[zealous edge]

So astrshdr's advice is good, but it's actually better to use this app with a smaller scope, anything above or around 120mm might provide too small of a field of view to get images of DSO's that are actually capturable. Lots of DSO's are just simply too faint to get with astro shader, even with something like an 8 inch dob, which is moreso a limit of the phone than the app. There's a good amount of DSO's that are both wide in the night sky, and bright enough for the phone to see, so you will want a smaller scope to do phone astrophotography. I recommend the Orion sky-scanner 100mm, it's a smol little dobsonian, but it has a parabolic mirror, so its images should be sharp. I do not have one, as they're on back order at the moment and won't be available until March lol.

[elder birch]

Completely agree.

Shooting at higher focal lengths, untracked, and with a phone is about as difficult as it gets 😅

[quartz crag]

But it can reward you with a good image

raw vs stack

[dark plank]

used iphone x for this

[zealous edge]

Ooh, what scope and/or camera?

[quartz crag]

phone + phone 🤦

[zealous edge]

hey man no need for the face palm, just asking a curious question. This should be a kind, open community, not one that discourages questions.

[quartz crag]

I agree but do read the title of this forum.

[magic abyss]

some people here use scopes and you could've answered your phone model

[zealous edge]

ok yes

but

that image is very nice, it doesn't look like it was taken with a phone

you can see dark nebulae, that's awesome

I was just thinking something stronger did it lol

[quartz crag]

@magic abyss @zealous edge @wind spoke

[elder birch]

Possibly some confusion as your original post with the image was in response to talk about higher focal length scopes and phones.

But either way a nice shot of rho ophiuchi for just a phone!

[spring viper]

F/3.4💀

[zinc heart]

Taken in a city, with a Samsung Galaxy A53 (Moon picture with Celestron Astromaster 130EQ)

[zealous edge]

fr I really wanna see Rho Ophiuchi in the sky someday, it's easily one of my favorite areas of our night sky.

[zealous edge]

Ah ok that makes sense now

it's a huawei phone, they have really good cameras

thx!

[proven surge]

how many pics did you stack?

[spice gale]

What bortle is that?

[terse smelt]

guessing 4-6

[quartz crag]

a lot

i believe its 30sec on the left and like 4h

so 480subs probably

[proven surge]

holy

[prime locust]

Hi

I have taken these photos with an app called AstroShader on iOS

[floral parcel]

That’s amazing

[zealous edge]

Not bad, what scope was the phone looking through?

[vale lintel]

What did you use to do that and what phone

just curious

[bronze jackal]

It's the samsung s22 ultra, I used the astrophotography mode on the Expert Raw app

[vale lintel]

Nice

i feel like samsung has so many better options then apple

[bronze jackal]

The exposure time for the wide shot was about 5 minutes, and 3 minutes for the Orion shot

My only gripe about the Samsung cameras for astro is the annoyingly visible increased brightness around the center of the images

[terse smelt]

thats what flats are for yo

[wild flame]

M42 taken with my S22 Ultra and Star Adventurer 2i plus suboptimal conditions
30 min | 6" subs

[placid pasture]

hey people - as someone who uses AstroShader, others probably noticed that files exported to png do not end in the .png extension and so have to be renamed. here I present the greatest innovation since the mirror, a program which will rename all files in its folder beginning in "iso" to have a .png extension. use it wisely 🫡

if you don't trust me, and why would you, feel free to compile it yourself, here's the source code in Nim

import os

for file in walkFiles("*"):
  if file[0..2] == "iso":
    moveFile(file, file & ".png")

[shell grove]

could also do ren iso* iso*.png in command line on windows

but I did have to google that because windows scary

[placid pasture]

why learn command line utilities when I can write four times as many lines in Nim

[shell grove]

this is the way

[dense moat]

Five minute exposure on my Google pixel 7a

Got triangulum and Andromeda in there

[quartz crag]

noice

[elder birch]

🤦‍♂️ I will fix this in the next release (out in some time in the next few days)
Thanks for raising it!

[smoky scaffold]

it’s cool being able to look directly at the sun

the one time i appreciate clouds

[ebon lion]

Ye looks surreal:D

[zealous edge]

There was a brief few weeks a while ago, when those wildfires in Canada sent enough smoke over to the US east coast to dim the sun enough for you to look at it directly, it appeared as a slightly bright orange circle in the sky. Such a neat thing to see!

[placid pasture]

awesome!!!! 💙 another suggestion, it would be incredibly helpful to be able to drag around the zoomed in FOV. not sure if that's possible but it would make centering an object possible digitally rather than moving my telescope for 5 min

[edgy talon]

You can

[smoky scaffold]

yeah I remember that day

I unfortunately only got to see it as it was minutes away from setting

[placid pasture]

did I hallucinate not being able to do that or what

[marsh sluice]

Phone ISS

[placid pasture]

i'm trying to do it right now and it doesn't work. maybe I have to update?

nope, up to date. am I being trolled or what

[terse smelt]

you litterally can??

[placid pasture]

well something is not working then, how am I supposed to do it

I am using the iPhone 13 if it matters

[placid pasture]

to be extremely clear, i'm not asking if I can zoom in astroshader, but if when i'm zoomed in can I drag around to pan the view towards an object of interest. I can't find any way to do this but now two people are saying I can

[solemn spindle]

orion with iphone 11

[edgy talon]

Astrocams only

[placid pasture]

AstroShader is a phone app. it's what I've been talking about this whole time

[placid pasture]

looks nice and bright!

[visual burrow]

dipper of pledis

[fiery rover]

it looks like being sucked from Orion😆😆

[visual burrow]

bortle 9

[knotty mica]

Pause.

[bronze jackal]

Mag 11.3 visible with phone camera from bortle 5 is crazy

[knotty mica]

Imagine that in bortle 1, would be crazy.

[distant matrix]

Milky Way, iPhone 13 Max, Bortle class 4, Teide National park in Tenerife

[glass gust]

iphone se 74 15 sec exposures bortle 5

[zinc heart]

guys witch phone is best for astrophotography?

[quartz crag]

any Huawei or Pixel

[zinc heart]

ok thx

[fiery rover]

yes it's probably Xiaomi

and I have proof for that

Take for example Lucas Gonçalves

he takes most of his deep sky images with his Xiaomi 12 and they look amazing

there's no doubt that Xiaomi has the best phones for astrophotography

[zealous edge]

Honestly yeah, it's almost cheating to use that phone for "Phone Astrophotography".

Like it has a legitimately large camera sensor and everything lol

it's pretty cool honestly

[spice gale]

This one. Right?

[spring viper]

Everything about Xiaomi is terrible except the camera.

View the list of supported smartphones in DeepSkyCamera

All new flagships take good photos, but not all have good support

Even my Redmi note 7 takes good pictures

A good camera is only a small part of a good astrophoto

[solemn spindle]

i think hes tracked too so that also makes them very good

[clever sandal]

a bunch of phone shots from my 8 night orion project

[zinc heart]

how long exposure should i have on my phone if i want to photo milkyway?

[spice gale]

Depending on your location

these were taken with ISO 3200 and 10s exposure

[spring viper]

Dark sky

[terse smelt]

10-20 secs

[queen zealot]

iPhone against eyepiece of sky max 127, b8

[hollow mural]

First ever try on jupiter looks pretty decent ig with the moons

[zealous edge]

It definitely seems that everyone's first phone image of Jupiter tends to look like that, the process begins!

This was mine lol

certified Not Great™️

[plush palm]

12x15 seconds
Taken with realme 9
Almost full moon tho

[zealous edge]

Looks neat, I like that you can juuust barely see the flame nebula near Alnitak

I'm also noticing some odd RGB streaks of color going across the image, wonder what's causing that

[plush palm]

Ye me too, are there any ways to get rid of them?

[zealous edge]

I'm not exactly advanced enough in this subject to know why they're appearing, and I'm sure there's programs that can identify them and get rid of them automatically, but if it were up to me, I'd plug the image into photoshop or really any image editing application, and remove them manually

[plush palm]

The thing is I don't have Photoshop sadly

[zealous edge]

(mostly because I wouldn't really know what programs are out there that I could use, nor how to use said programs)

[zealous edge]

Ah ok

well uhhhhhhmm

ok

so this is what I do to edit my images in post processing

I use an app called IbisPaint X, it's supposed to be used for the creation of digital art, which I do use it frequently for that, being an artist. But I've discovered that many of the tools it provides are great for leveling out noise, adding noise (if necessary), getting rid of artifacts like those streaks, among many other things. It's a little unorthodox, but it gets the job done

[solemn spindle]

some of my best galaxy pics

1. Tweezers Galaxy
2. Sombrero Galaxy
3. M83
4. Leo Triplet
5. Antennae Galaxies (faintest object ive captured)

all taken with an iphone 11 and skywatcher 150p

[floral parcel]

Orion from tonight

[knotty mica]

Actually pretty good for untracked and a phone, try taking short exposures to avoid star trailing though, some of these images look pretty blurry.

[solemn spindle]

I think it’s more of an issue with coma and shooting through an eyepiece than exposure time

[knotty mica]

Oh ok

[zealous edge]

Very well done! I still have yet to get a proper dobsonian that fits my budget and my necessities. Currently waiting until March to order an Orion SkyScanner dob, because that's when they come back in stock lol. I hope someday to get images as nice as yours!

[zealous edge]

How much exposure time would you say each image had? If you can remember?

[solemn spindle]

each image had about 700-1200 one second exposures which were stacked

[zealous edge]

Aight, good to know actually! So that's about a maximum of roughly 20 minutes of exposure time if my math is correct, much less than I first assumed.

[elder birch]

Great image!

Yes, fairly sure you are correct here, as the direction of trailing varies throughout the image.
It looks like pincushion distortion (astigmatism) from the optics somewhere, but could also be due to back focus/camera spacing. Comatic abberation could be an issue too.

You could test varying the camera distance from the eyepiece to see if it reduces the effect?
(I have pinchusion in some images and barrel distortion in others so for a reflector+eyepiece+iPhone back spacing is having some effect).

Another hacky thing I often do is to shoot out of the centre of the phone lens, e.g. setting up a wider FOV and zooming in.

[solemn spindle]

Thank you for the tips

[plush palm]

20x13 seconds exposure
Realme 9

[zealous edge]

I love that the flame and horsehead nebula are just barely visible, super neat!

[vale lintel]

Its crazy how much stuff truly is visible but we filter out in our heads as just noise at a glance

[zealous edge]

Well, as astronomy nerds our eyes are kinda trained on space objects, being able to recognize shapes amongst noise

[vale lintel]

Exactly

To a normal person that just looks like a cloud of some sort or odd noise and light around a cloud but to people like us we can understand exactly what those clouds and specs are

[zealous edge]

You can even just make out, even less than the flame nebula, Barnards Loop to the left of Orion, which is pretty neat.

[zealous edge]

yeah, it's why even just a starry night sky is fascinating to me. It's less the visuals, as cool as it looks, but moreso knowing what it actually is. To stare into the night sky and realize, that every little pinpoint of light is a star, many lightyears to hundreds, possibly thousands of lightyears away from our own, is amazing.

They're all out there doing their own thing, fusing hydrogen and being the enormous contained nuclear explosions they are. Most of them have their own planets, some more than our system, some less.

They exist, with the right technology we could visit them.

I think that's incredible.

[vale lintel]

Just to think of how vast it is and possibly full of other beings is un-paralleled imagine millions of other civilizations we can't contact and they can't contact us. Other life living their own history, its just so interesting

[zealous edge]

It's fascinating, and also sad and profound in a way. Intelligent life is separated by such unimaginably long distances, both in time and physical space, that it's rare for civilizations to ever contact each other. And yet at the same time, some civilizations must have developed technology of unimaginable superiority, warp travel technology capable of traversing entire galaxy clusters in mere seconds, without suffering the effects of time dilation and time paradoxes. It's just so neat to think about how the universe has provided itself with such a limited amount of elements, resources, materials, etc, and yet such unfathomably awesome things can and have been happening for literal billions of years.

Its amazing.

also I appreciate the AC7 YF-23 pfp lol

[terse smelt]

there's also tiny amounts of banards loop

absolutely destroyed this image but banards loop is there

[zealous edge]

Yeah I noticed that, I love how much is really going on in the Orion constellation. Such a dynamic little place.

[terse smelt]

it's like 6 things tho, banards loop, the main nebula, the horse and flame nebula, that reflection nebula I forget the name of, witch head.

I think ursa major has more galaxies AND m40

[elder birch]

Ha, amazing!

[plush palm]

ye i love how i can see the all those nebula including barards loop, but sadly the discord kinda ruined the quality

i still dont know how to get rid of those hot pixels

they kinda ruined the image

[plush palm]

also that image is croped, the full image is not as interesting

i like how i can see rossete nebula and stuff

but there are too much hot pixels in that image

why do discord alway ruin image quilty bruh

[terse smelt]

take darks

wait are darks even powerful enough for that

[plush palm]

ye, but the problem is i shoot that just on phone, no telescope

[terse smelt]

yeah but i don't think that matters? just stack that image with a dark and It should hopefully work?

[plush palm]

do i just cover the camera?

[terse smelt]

yeah just take an image at same exposure and iso as that (i think its ideal if you take it on site when you take the regular image but i dont know, get advice from somebody else)

[solemn spindle]

Heres just a test to try get rid of my horrendous coma. I used star resynthesis in Siril which basically replaces the stars in the image with artificial stars. I also added some star reduction. I think the stars look a little odd especially for the brighter ones but it works. Might use this on some photos or just remove the stars entirely. Theres still some stretched stars that couldnt be detected and just stayed.

[zinc heart]

guys, whats the best android app for long exposure photos (my cam can only do 10sec)

[plush palm]

Use 10 sec and stack them (deepskystacker, sequtor...)

Take like 20x10 seconds

[ebon lion]

No he has to get longer exps so the snr is better:D

[ebon lion]

Deepskycamera

Just dont get trails xd

[signal flume]

All with an iPhone SE 3

[plush palm]

i mean, i use 8-15 seconds exposure and then just stack them, im stacking one right now while im writing that txt

[ebon lion]

Mmm ye doing more while being untracced is not rlly gud xd

[plush palm]

how did u get so many roles?

[ebon lion]

Apart from the nerd, i can select the others to show more channels here

Go to channels and roles

[smoky scaffold]

1s x 120 pics, iphone 15 pro

[solemn spindle]

Just got a t ring

Goodbye chat

[elder birch]

Had a quick go at removing the background. You might manage better with the original.

I think some of that gradient might be eyepiece spacing from the iPhone lens

[placid pasture]

@elder birch I like the new update, background removal is nice!

[smoky scaffold]

it’s so good man

background extraction is a game changer

[zealous edge]

I'll definitely have to try out the background extraction the next time I get the chance to do astro stuff, someone in my area must've bought a scope because it's been nothing but clouds for the past two weeks.

[hushed crypt]

Moon

[zealous edge]

This is my current best photo of the moon. Not nearly as good as the previous two posts, but I like it. It even has some mineral stuff on it, even if only a little bit

[smoky scaffold]

indeed

[dense moat]

What exposure and iso and whatever the crap do you guys think I would need to see nebula around the Pleiades idc if you can barely see it.

Aw man:(

[signal flume]

Incorrect

[signal flume]

What gear are you using?

[dense moat]

Phone adapter and heritage 130p

No tracking on the mount

[signal flume]

Ah okay. With a phone you probably can't. Try take up to 5 minutes of exposure and stack. Might get some nebulosity.

[terse smelt]

the phone choice also matters, what phone?

[sick rain]

Finally, some clear skies these days after three cloudy months.

I can share the data if anyone thinks it's artificially masked

[terse smelt]

how th did you get jpeg banards loop

[sick rain]

Its jpeg because I sent it through an app from my pc to my phone because I am too lazy to get my cable. It's 4am now. I can release the tiff in the morning

[terse smelt]

ah that makes sense

[zealous edge]

So I've actually captured some nebulosity around the Pleiades with my phone before, it takes atleast five to eight minutes of exposure time to see it with an iPhone 12, in a bortle 6.5

There was an attempt at imaging the Heart Nebula with my phone, I'm sure it's maybe possible to see a tiny bit of it, but it also helps to be pointed at the right spot, especially when you don't have tracking. While I didn't capture the Heart Nebula, I did manage to see two little star clusters, NGC-663 and IC-166.

Some slight star trailing but I don't have the patience to manually adjust every single star in this image to be rounder💀

[elder birch]

This was with a just a monocular and iPhone13 (150 x 1s, ISO 1500 …I think)

[knotty mica]

pretty descent, but why is everything blue?

[dense moat]

Did you stack pictures?

[dense moat]

Cause that's the color of the stars???

[formal notch]

use siril star recomposition

[clear hawk]

any recommendations for a phone mount? i see some going for up to $150 but im not really sure if its worth getting one that expensive

[placid pasture]

just get a cheap 10-20$ one on amazon or something. the photos aren't gonna be limited by the mount really

[solemn spindle]

I used a generic $10 one. You can find some on ebay. The phone mount isn't really that important as long as it works. Just try to cover the space between the phone and eyepiece to avoid external light from coming in.

[placid pasture]

that last bit is slightly important sometimes, it's really annoying when a nearby house light causes glare covering up your whole image

[clear hawk]

thank you ! I thought it was a bit ridiculous to drop a lot on a mount. good to know :)

[zealous edge]

I'd like to try it out, unfortunately I don't have a computer to do it with

[formal notch]

Ok if I get free time I would try to do it for you

Orion taken thru Samsung A04F and 114/900 scope highly cropped

[prime locust]

Hi

I have taken my best shot of Jupiter

42 second video

Stacked is registax 6

Also here is the Orion Nebula through my new Celestron 70mm travel scope

Mounted on my Astro fi mount

Also Alnitak

[fierce mica]

Orion Nebula With phone attached to telscope

Jupiter aswell

[placid pasture]

nice!

[placid pasture]

good improvement on jupiter from your last one

same for orion

[zealous edge]

My new best image of the Double Cluster in Perseus! I think it's a pretty neat DSO, also it's not posted very often on this server so I thought why not share my work?

[zealous edge]

Huh ok

[kindred zephyr]

mon is loking god

[kindred zephyr]

how long exposure did you took of it?

[kindred zephyr]

its looking really good for a phone

nice work

[fierce mica]

My phone had 2sec exposure time I think

No 6

6 seconds

[zealous edge]

Starfield with some clusters, NGC-663, and IC-166

[iron bear]

I'm reprocessing a photo with new techniques. And look at this data... Even though I captured it myself, I can't believe this is coming from a cell phone

[knotty mica]

Wow, did you use a tracker?

[iron bear]

Yep!

Modified eq3 with onstep

[iron bear]

Milkyway North arm: North America Nebula on the left and Andromeda Galaxy on the right near the horizon.
.
📋 Exif:
📷 Xiaomi 12, 24mm F1.8 (imx766)
⚙ 30x55s ISO 400 for the sky with eq3 tracking and a single 20s ISO 800 for the foreground shot with tracking disabled to not blur
📌 Munhoz, Brazil. Bortle 4 ~
IG: lucasgoncalves_js

[smoky scaffold]

the star colors are always majestic

[iron bear]

Widefield Moon hdr.

Xiaomi 12. 20-1/1000s ISO 50 shot.
Brazil, bortle 3 sky

[zealous edge]

Well it certainly helps to have a phone with a literal DSLR level camera on it, honestly it feels less like phone astrophotography and more like just bonafide, normal astrophotography😄

Fantastic images, nevertheless!

[shy snow]

Second ever mineral moon image

I am still on phone level

[fierce mica]

Hercules globular cluster with phone attached to a telscope

I had to stay up at 4-6:30am on a school day and I had to get ready at 7am🥱😮‍💨

[knotty mica]

At that point don’t even go to sleep.

[fierce mica]

I don't got to sleep much actually 😅😅😅

But it was the only time Hercules globular cluster was high in the sky and right Infront of my house

It looks more worse but with the naked eye visually it looks like some fussy weird object that has like less than 5 Little stars visible but taking a photo made it so much more clear

This is my first ever globular cluster

The Hercules

M13

[spice gale]

Such an improvement

[fierce mica]

Oh I just blurred this on editing to show what it kinda looks like with just your eye

And without a phone

My pfp is my photo of the moon

[spice gale]

Oh

[spice gale]

It's good

[fierce mica]

New pfp

[spice peak]

My pfp is also made by me 😄

[fierce mica]

Nice

[knotty mica]

M13 is one of the best visual targets.

[simple crow]

Wow

[wild flame]

managed to capture the flame nebula with almost everything working against me a few days ago
Camera: Galaxy S22 Ultra 10X telephoto
Mount: Star Adventurer 2i
Extreme Bortle 9 sky
50 min total @ 6" subs
(Focus was changing during each live stack with how cold it was, started to get foggy, street light nearby, etc.)

I'll try again on a later date with a better tripod than my amazon essentials garbage and a darker sky (with longer subs)

[neat schooner]

How do you get the mineral features?

[terse smelt]

crank up saturation

i think not sure

[shy snow]

Saturation increase

I did it on lightroom tho

No gimp or Ps

[dusk crow]

iPhone 13

[sick rain]

Ignore the bright stars. I know they look bad

That's over 1000 18-second frames

Thanks

[edgy talon]

DBE PLEASE

[wild flame]

ILL DO IT WHEN I LEARN HOW TO

[edgy talon]

DOWNLOAD SIRIL

DYNAMIC BACKGROUND EXTRACTION

[wild flame]

NO I HATE SIRIL

[ebon lion]

Dbe will make it worse here

There are the mw which ks fine, a fookin tree and a bright ass light

[ebon lion]

U need it for dbe, if u dont wanna get pixinsights

[wild flame]

Ion do all that 😭

[ebon lion]

Its ONE CLICK

XDD

[wild flame]

I just take picture and throw it in gimp

[ebon lion]

:c

[wild flame]

And DSS

But that's it

[ebon lion]

REEEEE

[wild flame]

Harr harr

[ebon lion]

Prettty good tho

I should be able to remove the weird light and the tree, xan u give me the stacked data?

[wild flame]

Once I go to a bortle 2 spot I'll try again doing everything right

[ebon lion]

Ooooo

And dont forget darks:D even with a non cooled cam it can make a difference

No need for bias too then

[edgy talon]

Ohh right right

I'd still try to dbe so the bg isn't clipped

[ebon lion]

Not clipped at all :D

[ebon lion]

points gun at u gimme da data right n o w

[wild flame]

Aughhhhh hold on lemme get to my pc

[ebon lion]

REEEEEE

[wild flame]

heres the raw stack

[ebon lion]

:3

Flame lmao

[wild flame]

I dont put effort in naming things

[ebon lion]

:D

[wild flame]

at this point ive resorted to calling my orion data "Onion"

[ebon lion]

Xd noic

[wild flame]

its borderline unusable so good luck

[ebon lion]

Im pretty good at bad data:D

[wild flame]

fair

[ebon lion]

But thats pretty good for a phone

[wild flame]

I was surprised that I got any data with how bad the light pollution is here

[ebon lion]

Lol

What bortle

[wild flame]

9

inner city

its really nice being able to count the stars in the sky at any given time

[ebon lion]

._.

?!?!?!?!??!?!

Dude

I would have guessed b4

How tf

[wild flame]

trial and error

[ebon lion]

O.o

Betzer than most people with dedicated rig

[wild flame]

I basically just brute force my images

I'm gonna travel to dark sky spots a lil more this year and try to get some andromeda data

I can barely make out the dust lanes rn

but im surprised with my phone honestly

[ebon lion]

Ye:D

Wat phone

[wild flame]

S22 ultra

[ebon lion]

Noic:D

[wild flame]

I was looking to get the S24 but it seems to be a downgrade since its only a 5x telephoto

[ebon lion]

Lel

[wild flame]

so uh

how'd it turn out 💀

[ebon lion]

Had to render my old timelapses xd

Will edit it now

[wild flame]

👌

[ebon lion]

now ik why its called flame

its just the flame neb

i want daaa oriooooon

[wild flame]

this is what I can get with my phone

probs could be better but thats just 20 min

2x10 min livestacks

[ebon lion]

oooo

shesh

[wild flame]

I got an imaging rig but I dont have proper equipment yet

[ebon lion]

u got tracker?:D

lel

[wild flame]

SWSA 2i

just got a 105mm mak too

which is a lil overkill in the focal length department

but with a 0.5x reducer I can get 700mm @ F7ish

if I knew how to mount the damn reducer 😭

[ebon lion]

xddd

butt well, plsssss send me da orion one

the widefield one

🔪

[wild flame]

none

230mm is my native focal length on the 10x

even though I've gotten better with a $50 telephoto I found at a thrift shop, its still fun to take stuff like that with my phone

also a little bit easier

[ebon lion]

uh

bruh

bruuh

i thought da whole time i was talking to the guy that imaged the b9 orion lmao

[wild flame]

oh yea

I mean I got this at b9

[ebon lion]

that could have been avoided if i would have just read to who this boi was talking to xdddd

[ebon lion]

butt thats gud-w-

[wild flame]

coma goes crazy

[ebon lion]

coma?

or u mean chromatic abberation

[wild flame]

yea yea

same thing

more importantly the only reason why it looks kind of good is becuase it was cold enough to where it actually reached focus 💀

[edgy talon]

That background is clipped to all hell but the lighter portion

[ebon lion]

ye it is, i thought u were talking about the orion widefield boi:D

didnt checked to who u was talking to xd

[ebon lion]

sometimes im thinking about attachting my phone to my rig but then i think, its not worth the valuable time

clear nights are rare xd

[wild flame]

true

its pretty cloudy all the time

[ebon lion]

ye

[edgy talon]

Ohh yee

[wild flame]

regardless with how bad the haze is from the city, it might as well be foggy 24/7

[edgy talon]

What edits did you do

[ebon lion]

ono

[ebon lion]

imagine its smog xdddd

[wild flame]

simple stuff

stack, stretch, color calibration

[edgy talon]

Be a schizophrenic about your background

[ebon lion]

lol

[wild flame]

I wouldn't doubt it

if I get a proper image, I take more time

[edgy talon]

Domestic terrorism

[wild flame]

but for quick shots like that I dont bother

well I say "quick"

rather low effort shots more than that

I just slapped my phone onto my 2i and pointed towards orion's belt

I'll figure out how to use my mak with a reducer and use that as my main rig instead of a smartphone

then i'll reinstall siril and proceed from there

that being said the S22 Ultra is a workhorse even if its just a phone

🤷‍♂️

I am curious on how deep sky would look with it once I go to a lower bortle spot

[ebon lion]

u said 10x zoom is about 230mm in focal lenght?

[wild flame]

yep

perfect for the more visible targets

[ebon lion]

wouldnt be the 100x digital zoom 2300mm then xdd

[wild flame]

yea but you'll see about all of 2 pixels

[ebon lion]

mmmm

[wild flame]

its still only a 12mp sensor

[ebon lion]

mp doesnt matter

some astrocams hav 2mp or so

just the quality of how light is being reflected to a point is important:D

[wild flame]

yea but those are mainly used for guide scopes

ig

[ebon lion]

great for photography too actually

[wild flame]

I started AP with my sony point and shoot that I use for regular photo stuff

quite noisy but it did what it needed to do

I just need a better tripod

and I should be fine with a low-end setup

[ebon lion]

ye:D

[wild flame]

hows the edit going

[ebon lion]

was too distracted from chatting xd

butt n o w

[wild flame]

ah

[ebon lion]

loots of noise :D

[wild flame]

to be expected

I dont exactly have the best contrast when im shooting practically in a lightbulb

[ebon lion]

xd

ye

[wild flame]

Im probably gonna see if i can get the rosette nebula in a dark sky spot

although my sensor probably has like 3x less light gathering ability as a dwarf II so it'll be time consuming

[ebon lion]

ui

[ebon lion]

get siril

[wild flame]

oh alr not bad

[ebon lion]

:D

Used ps too btw

[wild flame]

GIMP supremacy 🗣️

[ebon lion]

NOOOO

[wild flame]

not gonna catch me paying for an editing software

[ebon lion]

Xd

[wild flame]

but thx for editing it

ill probs get siril sooner or later

after I get my actual setup figured out

[ebon lion]

Yee gud

[wild flame]

I'll see when I can get a trip to a dark sky

then catch a few targets

mainly flame and rosette

and M31

[ebon lion]

Vewi gud-w-

[wild flame]

since andromeda actually picks up well on my phone

[ebon lion]

Even tho orion with barnards loop and rosette would be the best but idk how high its for u

[wild flame]

oh yea

not too high rn

[ebon lion]

Ye

[wild flame]

and when I get that trip it'll cut it close

[ebon lion]

Its too late

[wild flame]

rosette will stay up for about another month and a half

so I dont have too much time

maybe 2 months

but idk

thats really the only target I haven't gotten

that I want to

and NA nebula but thats later in the year

[ebon lion]

Shesh

[wild flame]

I'll probably get more active on the server once I finally get the last couple things for my setup

and a job...

[ebon lion]

I will kilö u if u dont get mw data in b2 :D

[wild flame]

I will I will

I just need more TIME!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

and a working car..

but alas

[ebon lion]

Lel

[zealous edge]

That's honestly not bad at all, you can see some of the ionized hydrogen in the flame + horsehead region, the Orion Nebula, and you can even see Barnards Loop too

What did you use to take the image

[sick rain]

Motorola Edge 20 lite

And this

[zealous edge]

Ah ok, nice!

[smoky scaffold]

I managed to get the horse head just barely

[quartz crag]

this tracked or untracked?

[smoky scaffold]

untracked

I think I did like 3s exposures

[shy snow]

Guys

Any idea if focal reducers work for phone astrophotography?

Phone with a refractor telescope

Wouldn't ask if I had to buy

[shy snow]

Anything else that might help?

[elder birch]

The spacing between the eyepiece and the phone camera can have a big effect. It can warp the image causing star shapes to be off and brightness rings.

Certain adapters/mounts let you control this in a “z-axis” like arrangement.

[tulip geyser]

What ISO are you using?

[smoky scaffold]

it was around 10000

[tulip geyser]

I was thinking I’d have to go high to get any decent stackable photos. If I take a s*** ton of them and take a s*** ton of bias and darks then I should be able to get some decent results

Have you tried any galaxies yet?

@smoky scaffold

[smoky scaffold]

yup

same night

I love that this target is so close to polaris so I can take longer exposures

[tulip geyser]

Bode’s with Cigar and NGC 3077?

[smoky scaffold]

what’s ngc 3077?

[smoky scaffold]

oh wow I guess so

[smoky scaffold]

I didn’t even know about that

[tulip geyser]

I had the same question, I imaged it last night

So you do Super high ISO and longer exposure, what app do u use?

[smoky scaffold]

astroshader

only available for iphones

[tulip geyser]

Ever use the auto stack?

I have it but couldn’t use it properly, I’ll give it another shot

Yea I like to reference star charts w pictures to discover new objects

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/NGC_3077

[smoky scaffold]

yes

the picture of bodes is like 80 auto stacked

3s exposures

[tulip geyser]

Right on, I’ll attempt it tonight if the weather calls

Crazy that u could take pictures of one cool thing and whoops there’s another hidden galaxy

What’s the best andromeda you’ve captured?

[smoky scaffold]

oh i gotcha

this one was in november

[tulip geyser]

Woooow. How do you manage to keep the subject in frame while it’s capturing?

[smoky scaffold]

since i’m doing untracked, I have the target in the very corner of the eyepiece when I start imaging

and the it gradually moves across the eyepiece staying in view

[tulip geyser]

Ahhhhh smart

Well I’m very excited now, those are very good pics

[smoky scaffold]

thank you

[tulip geyser]

What kind of telescope do you have?

[smoky scaffold]

by the way i’m using the iphone 15 pro

[smoky scaffold]

orion starblast 4.5 rq

eq*

[tulip geyser]

Right on, I have a simple 70mm refractor, however I’m sure these pics will be much better than my prior

[smoky scaffold]

when I image stuff I usually go to an empty field off one of the main highways that passes through my town

it’s pretty weird being in pitch black with nothing around you

and the sky is full of stars

pretty surreal

the only thing taking away is the bitter cold 💀 my hands are freezing when I pack up

[tulip geyser]

I find it surreal to be in that same scenario and with my telescope be able to view the rotation of earth, being able to view all these crazy objects

[smoky scaffold]

btw I should mention that these pics were taken at bortle 3-4

[tulip geyser]

Yup my images are taken at the same

What setting is your stacker set to, strong alignment?

[smoky scaffold]

yes

it says it might take a little longer to complete, but I honestly don’t see a difference

[tulip geyser]

Cool cool

I’m off to work but I’ll give you the results tonight

[edgy talon]

Don't do this

Your stars will be trailed from coma regardless

[smoky scaffold]

true but whats the other option to being able to get more integration time

[formal notch]

guys do your phones take images in raw or dng

[tulip geyser]

@smoky scaffold what do you use to edit your photos?

[smoky scaffold]

just astro shader

ive tried siril but im bad at it

and i get better results from astroshader

[tulip geyser]

Would you give me ur settings to use? I’m not familiar w curves and that

[smoky scaffold]

camera settings?

or how i edit

[tulip geyser]

How u edit, also which file u capture in

[smoky scaffold]

I save as png

when im editing I typically turn brightness and then background extraction all the way up

and then change the curves to whatever looks best

im not entirely sure how the curves work either, but ive found out if you have high mid curves, you need high high curves to even it out

@tulip geyser here’s an example of what I mess with

[tulip geyser]

I’m sending some photos, taking a while. Maybe it’s just what I’m capturing that I can’t get good photos, could you attempt to do somethin to em?

[smoky scaffold]

video didn’t send nvm

[smoky scaffold]

yeah sure I can try

[tulip geyser]

They sent

Would you try these files? I just can’t seem to get anything well

Sending my edited Orion Nebula photo

[smoky scaffold]

most of it comes out when you just turn brightness and be all the way up (but so does the noise)

[tulip geyser]

What should I do to get better results?

[smoky scaffold]

probably as many stacked pictures as possible

[tulip geyser]

I was thinkin, I might go out and attempt 180

90 brought it ~ to the center of the scope

Maybe w that many photos, I’d decrease the ISO to 9000 to limit noise

[smoky scaffold]

yeah try that

i’ve noticed my photos have a lot more noise at 10k iso 💀

it’s probably too much

anyway im heading to bed, so if you have any more questions i’ll get to them in the morning