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Awesome pictures, I know you must be excited for the new iPhone, I’m still loving mine and the 48mp resolution with day shots. Too bad the 48mp isn’t available with night mode, still 12mp, but very high quality 12mp!

As for shooting the moon, during night mode exposures it’s going to be a bright blob. To see the moon detail, a very fast shutter speed is needed, but that’s all you will see, only a properly exposed moon and black sky. Catching the moon at moonrise just after sunset is they best way as the sky and moon look to be the same brightness.

Yes I think that is a shooting star, a small one. You can tell as it is dim on both ends and brighter in the middle. Is your iPhone coming this week?
Why wouldn’t 48mp be made available for night photos? Is there something lacking in the hardware or could Apple enable it through software?
 
These are the best I could come up with last night of Jupiter & Saturn using my 14 Pro Max mounted on my Skywatcher 200p. The telescope is non tracking and the videos show how fast they move across a stationary lens.
Adjusted a little afterwards to try to improve.
I've just bought the Halide app so I can manually control ISO and aperture as the standard camera app is almost useless for planets. Hopefully I'll get better pics with that. Otherwise it'll be a pointless exercise with the equipment I have as looking through the eyepiece is so much better than these pics/vids.

IMG_1728.jpeg


 
Thanks Tara…

well capturing images of the planets is going to be tough if your telescope is one that does not track the sky. The telescope must be very well polar aligned so it will follow the objects in the eyepiece. You mentioned that the planets moved quickly out of view of the telescope which tells me that it was not tracking. Polar alignment may be difficult to understand, but it’s not too difficult, just takes practice. To help me, what kind of telescope are you using? This will determine for me if it can be aligned or not. If you have a dobsonian (tube telescope in a base) then you can’t track the sky. Unless it has a drive computer on it.

do you have a cell phone holder for your iPhone to attach to the eyepiece of the telescope So you can image through the scope? If not, I can recommend one. If your telescope will not track, the only thing you can get photos of would be the moon. So let’s just start with what type of telescope you have and go from there. A dobsonian telescope looks like this:
This was my telescope for sev years, a 20” Dobsonian for serious deep sky observations. This photo was taken in 2008.
Too much light pollution where I live now and too much humidity. I got to where I didn’t use it anymore and sold it.

I look forward to chatting more soon to offer more help.


View attachment 2074927
Yes, I have a Dobsonian! I have the Orion SkyQuest XT8i. I totally understand that I need a tracking one but also wishful thinking over here since I do not want to get rid of this one! 😂

We were able to see the planets okay speed-wise until we switched to a Barlow lense and that is where they just zipped by. But that is also understandable once you zoom in so much!

I remember when I got this one, I could have brought the model to have it track, but my silly young mind was like “how hard can it be?” 😒

I do have a cell phone mount now! (This still did not stop me from adding the one you recommended in another post to my Amazon cart though. 😂) I recently bought one but we have not gotten a chance to get back out there due to scheduling and then also the right conditions. Prior to this, I did not necessarily need one since we lived in a an area where we can be on solid ground with minimal shaking to view anything. Right now, our best viewing spot due to trees and angle is our porch so any little movement shakes the telescope. This coupled with trying to hold a phone convinced me to buy a holder to try to get one thing not to shake! I live where it is very secluded so the sky lights up nicely, but also surrounded by lots of trees. So we often have to wait until anything rises high enough which lately has been on the later side and it has been chilly at night.
 
These are the best I could come up with last night of Jupiter & Saturn using my 14 Pro Max mounted on my Skywatcher 200p. The telescope is non tracking and the videos show how fast they move across a stationary lens.
Adjusted a little afterwards to try to improve.
I've just bought the Halide app so I can manually control ISO and aperture as the standard camera app is almost useless for planets. Hopefully I'll get better pics with that. Otherwise it'll be a pointless exercise with the equipment I have as looking through the eyepiece is so much better than these pics/vids.

View attachment 2075178

View attachment 2075183
View attachment 2075179
Those aren’t bad though! I have a 10” telescope but it doesn’t have tracking either, so it’s pointless for me to try. At least you captured the belts of Jupiter in your image! Cool. The video was good also. I’m happy to see that Halide got their app ready for the 14 pro iPhones. Now I have the option to shoot 48mp HEIF or jpeg for shots that do not require ProRAW. Anyway, keep trying, goods shots
 
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Orion this morning on a 13PM. Not too bad. Took a few seconds to capture. I'm kind of geeked because the 12 I had really sucked at images like this for some reason. Yet the 13PM totally failed trying to get the toenail moon. How does the 14 do at that?

Orion.jpg
 
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Thanks Tara…

well capturing images of the planets is going to be tough if your telescope is one that does not track the sky. The telescope must be very well polar aligned so it will follow the objects in the eyepiece. You mentioned that the planets moved quickly out of view of the telescope which tells me that it was not tracking. Polar alignment may be difficult to understand, but it’s not too difficult, just takes practice. To help me, what kind of telescope are you using? This will determine for me if it can be aligned or not. If you have a dobsonian (tube telescope in a base) then you can’t track the sky. Unless it has a drive computer on it.

do you have a cell phone holder for your iPhone to attach to the eyepiece of the telescope So you can image through the scope? If not, I can recommend one. If your telescope will not track, the only thing you can get photos of would be the moon. So let’s just start with what type of telescope you have and go from there. A dobsonian telescope looks like this:
This was my telescope for sev years, a 20” Dobsonian for serious deep sky observations. This photo was taken in 2008.
Too much light pollution where I live now and too much humidity. I got to where I didn’t use it anymore and sold it.

I look forward to chatting more soon to offer more help.


View attachment 2074927

Wow! That's a big Dobs! Nice.
 
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Todd, appreciate your follow-up and those photos from home. Actually, they are pretty good for an iPhone, especially if your skies are fairly light polluted! What would you say the limiting magnitude is there at home?

Are those two post-processed in any way?

In any case, to capture M31, the Andromeda Galaxy, at 2.3-2.5 million light years away, from your backyard and with an iPhone is impressive! The Milky Way is apparent and several star clusters and nebula are there, too — M8, the Sagittarius Star Cloud, etc.

I have an old Canon A650 digital camera, which does well with 15-second, ISO 400 photographs. No comparison to a DSLR, but easily reaches mag 8.5 and nicely captures constellations, star colors, and the brighter Messier objects. Limiting magnitude ar our house is around 4.4. On transparent nights, we can faintly make out the Milky Way and even the Andromeda Galaxy.

Look forward to your responses to my other questions when you get a chance!

Clear Skies and Happy Observing!

Thanks for that informative feedback. I use my Sony DSLR for Astro photography as well but I haven’t done it in quite some time because I’m not in a dark enough area. I haven’t really compared the faint stars on my photos with my iPhone with SkySafari, that’s kind of a cool idea and I’ll check into that. I would say the magnitude of the night sky where I took these was around 5th magnitude maybe 6 in the northern sky. I have attached two photos of the Milky Way and Andromeda from my home. It’s pretty bad. There isn’t any way for me to adjust the ISO on the iPhone during night mode, it chooses its own setting for the conditions that it sees. I will respond more to this thread of yours when I get home, I really appreciate your input

View attachment 2073232

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ITS MILKY WAY TIME!!!

I went to my usual dark sky location to test the iPhone 14 pro max in night mode. I must say the new larger sensor is 4x better than the 13 pro max. The Milky Way looks way more realistic and like a DSLR image……finally! Crazy to see these at ISO 12,500 and 10,000… wow. The max ISO of the new sensor is 12,768! Wow. But the images are clean at that ISO. I’m impressed. My iPhone was tracked on my skywatcher Star Adventurer during the 30” exposure to keep the stars pinpoint.

ProRAW and edited in Lightroom mobile.


Out of camera jpeg, no edit
Looks amazing!

How did you actually take the picture, just with the iPhone on a table facing the sky?
 
Not quite, lol. The phone is mounted on my Skywatcher 200P telescope.
I can see why you'd think that with the thread being about capturing the Milky Way with just the phone.
Apologies.
 
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ITS MILKY WAY TIME!!!

I went to my usual dark sky location to test the iPhone 14 pro max in night mode. I must say the new larger sensor is 4x better than the 13 pro max. The Milky Way looks way more realistic and like a DSLR image……finally! Crazy to see these at ISO 12,500 and 10,000… wow. The max ISO of the new sensor is 12,768! Wow. But the images are clean at that ISO. I’m impressed. My iPhone was tracked on my skywatcher Star Adventurer during the 30” exposure to keep the stars pinpoint.

ProRAW and edited in Lightroom mobile.

Out of camera jpeg, no edit
Nice - what ISO are these shots actually at? Seems a little noisy compared to a DSLR for a 30 second shot, but I suppose you can't avoid that on the small sensor. "Photonic Engine" really murdered that JPEG when it applied the noise reduction :p
 
Looks amazing!

How did you actually take the picture, just with the iPhone on a table facing the sky?
No, I used a small tracking device on a tripod. A regular tripod will work well also for you and anyone wanting to take a photo of the Milky Way. You need a cellphone holder that will mount to a tripod and set your night mode exposure to 30 seconds and start shooting.
 
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Nice - what ISO are these shots actually at? Seems a little noisy compared to a DSLR for a 30 second shot, but I suppose you can't avoid that on the small sensor. "Photonic Engine" really murdered that JPEG when it applied the noise reduction :p
The iso I mentioned In the topic thread. Yes it’s noisy for 30”. I wish Apple gave us more control. The jpeg is mushy compared to raw.
 
Thanks Adam… honestly I thought this thread would be long gone by now. But since I took these with the new iPhone, it has hung around. I’ll have more soon I hope

How do you change exposure in night mode to 30s sorry I’m a noob with iPhone cams
 
No where near as good as some on here, but just let the dogs out and took this from a suburban garden in the south of the UK. Hand held, 10 seconds exposure and using just the iPhone to adjust.

The pleiades are clearly visible and I think you can make out six of the 'seven sisters'. I'll put it on a tripod tomorrow to see if it improves

tempImage4HLs9H.png
 
How do you change exposure in night mode to 30s sorry I’m a noob with iPhone cams
When you open your camera and it’s dark outside, top left corner shows a yellow oval button with seconds shown (2 or 3s), which indicates night mode is on. Swipe up from near the bottom to show the other yellow round button. You’ll touch that, and you’ll see a numeric slider. slide that all the way to the left and if your hand holding the phone it will show 10 seconds maximum, if you’re on a tripod, it will show 30 seconds maximum depending on lighting conditions.
 
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