Use a remote shutter lead or delay timer app to trigger the shutter.Make sure your phone is rigidly supported.Start with the bright and easily recognised constellations: Orion in winter Cygnus in the summer Leo in spring Auriga and Taurus in autumn.Photograph the stars with your smartphone: step-by-step If you don’t get much detail in the shots you take, then you may have reached your camera’s limit and it may be time to consider an alternative device for capturing your photos such as a DSLR. Photographing the stars directly with a phone camera really tests how capable it is under low light conditions. However, loading the image into an editor and stretching it can often produce some quite nice surprises.Īs long as you don’t expect to go down to really faint stars, many camera phones are able to produce some very recognisable renditions of the brighter constellations.ĭon’t worry about the stars trailing as your exposures probably won’t be long enough for this. Results from star shots can be rather unimpressive and just look dark. Inexpensive tripod mountings for smartphones can work wonders, or you could make your own by following our DIY guide. If you move during the shot, the delicate starlight you’re trying to capture will be moved across the camera’s chip and the result won’t be very good. Long Exposure mode, 30.05 second exposure, 1/3s shutter speed. The Summer Triangle taken with the NightCap app. Holding the camera still for the duration of even a one-second exposure is critical. This is where many cameras will run out of steam, only permitting low values for ISO and exposure. Once you’ve determined exactly how to set the camera’s focus position to infinity, you’ll need to push the camera’s sensitivity to the max. If you’re not sure where the best focus is, one way to achieve this is to practice in daylight on a distant object.
If it does, there are several apps that present a slider to change the focus distance. Focus is a big issue here because, where the inclusion of a bright or silhouetted horizon may work with the planets, it’ll simply drown out delicate stars.Īn app that lets you take control of the camera, including focusing, is the way forward as long as your phone’s camera supports focus control. The advice is, as ever, to give it a go and see what you get. Stars can pose a more challenging target for many camera phones because they simply lack the brightness to register properly. Star trailing won’t be an issue – the exposures you need to use are too brief for them to appear.
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