A Guide to Phone Astrophotography
- Martyna Maczuga
- Sep 21
- 4 min read
A Guide to Phone Astrophotography
Written by Martyna Maczuga
When I show people shots I get of the Milky Way, the number one question I get asked is “What camera was this taken on”? What a lot of people do not realize is that space is a lot more accessible than you’d think, so when I tell them I took the photo on my iPhone 15, they look shocked! In this guide, I’ll cover how I use my iPhone 15 to get pictures of these celestial objects!
*A quick note is that this guide is geared towards iPhones as that's what I own, however this really will work with any phone as long as it has similar settings.
Bortle Scale
As mentioned in my previous guide, Bortle scale is an extremely important factor in Astrophotography, especially iPhone astrophotography. So, what IS the Bortle Scale? It’s a means of measuring “Light Pollution”, or how bright your night skies are. Lights from cities, houses, parks, etc. all “pollute” the night sky, and drown out a lot of the stars that otherwise would be visible. This is why in city skies, they look almost like daytime, with very little (if any) stars visible. For Astrophotography, the darker your skies are, the better. You can use this Light pollution map to check your Bortle level. To see the Milky Way with your naked eye, you usually need skies within the range of level 1-4, however to photograph the Milky Way, you really only need to have a level ⅚ or below.
Photographing the Night Sky Settings
Once you’ve determined you have dark enough skies, you can start photographing! Phone astrophotography is fairly simple with the correct settings, but you still need to have some things in order!
Positioning your Phone
This may seem like a silly question, but what do you want to photograph? The sky above you? Or a specific spot, like the Milky Way core? In order to “catch” the Milky Way, you need to know where to point! There are MANY apps that can help you learn the night sky, & figure out where things are at certain times of night! I personally use Stellarium, but there are many like it out there!
This is an example of what you'd see if you were to use the app. As you can see, the coordinates, time, constellations, stars, etc. are all included, which makes finding (& learning!) objects a lot easier.
Using the Correct Settings
Modern-day phones are capable of INCREDIBLE astrophotos. It really is insane just how much you can capture with the correct settings (& dark skies!).
To get started, take a look at that weird circle/moon shape at the top that most likely will say “3 seconds”. This is your phone's exposure time, or how long it takes to take the photo. Generally speaking, the longer the time, the better.
Press on either the top or the bottom shape, & a slider should open up. Slide this all the way to the 10 second mark. This increases your exposure time from a short 3 seconds, to 10.
Additionally, using a tripod is helpful, but not necessary. I took a good portion of my iPhone photos by placing my phone directly on the ground & setting a 10 second timer. Astrophotography requires your phone to be very still, and even the “tap” of pressing the button can mess up the shakiness. So, even with a tripod, setting the timer is a good idea anyways. This also helps your phone do a 30 second exposure. NOT all phones do this, but specifically iPhones do, & if held still enough / placed on a tripod, will automatically do a 30 second exposure instead of a 10 second!
Your Final Photos!
Once your photo is finished, you should end up with something like this!
Your photo may not have as many (or could have more!) stars, again, depending on your location, & Bortle scale. Additionally, if the Milky Way is not visible from your location (due to time of year, light pollution, etc.) you will not be able to capture it!
Editing these photos is important as well, but I process a good amount of my photos either through Pixinsight or Lightroom. Both of these options run on your PC & are paid, however there are many free editing apps / softwares! For phone processing (No PC), the three best apps in my opinion are VSCO, Lightroom/PS, & Snapseed. For FREE PC processing softwares, the best one by far in my opinion is called Gimp. For the fact it's free, it works incredibly well!
Unfortunately editing is something that will differ from photo to photo, and also vary slightly between phones/apps, therefore I will not be covering that in this guide. However, there are many YouTube tutorials around that are extremely helpful!
Examples of my iPhone 15 photos
Conclusions
Thank you so much for reading through this guide! I really hope I was able to shed some light on how easy Phone Astrophotography is! I would love to see your photos! Feel free to send them to me, I adore seeing everyone's work!
Again, thank you for supporting myself & NOVA! It means the world to all of us, & we appreciate you!
Until next time, Per Aspera Ad Astra! ✩₊˚.⋆☾⋆⁺₊✧✩₊˚.⋆☾⋆⁺₊✧
Martyna
If you ever have any specific questions / want to show off your work, feel free to email me! astrophysecho@gmail.com
Works Cited
“Bortle Scale.” Wikipedia, 14 July 2021, en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bortle_scale.
Stellarium. “Stellarium Astronomy Software.” Stellarium.org, 2019, stellarium.org/.
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