BRAKKING

Astrophotography on Budget

• 2 min read

Kaza-Spiti

Credits - John-Weak, Device - Realme X2 pro, Location - Kaza - Spiti, 2022

Astrophotography, also known as astronomical imaging, is the photography or imaging of astronomical objects, celestial events, or areas of the night sky.

Prerequisite

  1. Phone
    • Android phone with Astrophotography mode/gcam port
    • Iphone with Night Mode
  2. Tripod with phone mount
  3. Photopills App ~ Optional
  4. SnapSeed App Android, Iphone

Process

Astrophotography requires two things.

The first is setup, a really dark place with clear sky and preferably less wind are the ideal conditions. You may also use Photopills App to get a general idea for the direction & angle of milky way or whatever you are targeting in real time. Most phones won’t require tweaking things, but incase manual control is needed I recommend the following.

  • Phone settings
    • ISO to as high as possible (ISO 6400 is often good enough)
    • focus to infinity
    • shutter speed to around 30 seconds
    • image output as .raw image
    • timer to 10s (to prevent any vibrations, caused by tapping the screen)

Remember to turn of all the lights as soon as timer starts.

tripod-setup

John-Weak prepping, 3:45 AM, Kaza - Spiti

The second is time and patience. It is something that is hard to get right the first time and it might take many attempts, iterating on different setting & angles, to finally get a shot that gets you excited.

After you have a good shot you may use snapseed to make minor adjustments, so stars pop.

Goodluck :)