Those are great!! The andromeda galaxy looks great. HEIF or ProRAW? Raw looks best as HEIF or JPEG applies too much noise reduction and creates a mushy look. I like the fact that you place foreground objects in the shots… good job.
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iPhone 15 Pro Max Star Test: 15 PM Night mode is better than 14 pro max!!
- Thread starter ToddH
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Here’s a pic with a Sony A7iii I took a few years back. Up in North Central Ohio. Never tried astrophotography until this night. I had to crop it from the original as the file was too big. But once you start you want to get more and deeper pictures.
As the 2 phones use the same sensor for the main camera, the improvement is achieved in software…which, to be honest, is still pretty amazing. A great upgrade.
The only bummer is that Apple could probably have applied the software improvements to the 14 Pro too.
Still, nice to see progress.
The only bummer is that Apple could probably have applied the software improvements to the 14 Pro too.
Still, nice to see progress.
A7iii is a great camera for Astro. I recently got the sigma f1.4 14mm lense for my A7iii & it’s an absolute beast for Astro. Can’t wait for an aura storm 😊
You don't have to use a mount that expensive, I've used a skywatcher AZ-GTI, it's like $450 and with a wider field setup it works fine, I also live 35 miles from the loop in Chicago and use narrowband filters and get great results. While I didn't use an AZ-GTI for this shot I could have it would have been fine at 300mm, took this a couple nights ago.
It's become my main hobby now, I've sold a couple prints and had a gallery showing once. It's not the cheapest hobby but once you buy the equipment it doesn't change much and you can build your way up and buy used equipment for much cheaper. Anyhow this is getting way off topic, follow me on insta @starlancerastro if you want to see more.
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The 15 does have a different lens system which could play a decent part in the improvement.
Yeah about that slippery slope tho xD I want an equitorial real bad but I'm not selling images or anything so that's a pretty good slope for purely hobby level stuff. So far the stacking works and interval shooting isn't all that big of a deal.
This shot was taken on my 13 Pro 2 years ago. Note Andromeda in the middle the image. Just stabilize the phone, set to ProRAW, manually select aperture to stay open for 30 secs. Voila:
Just ordered a tripod and can’t wait to really push my 15 Pro Max for some Astro shots.
Just ordered a tripod and can’t wait to really push my 15 Pro Max for some Astro shots.
Now that I'm a bit more familiar with using Sequitor, I need to see about getting an app that will do interval shooting of an extended exposure on my phone.... Basically do the same thing with my phone as I'm doing with my K70 and image stacking.
Playing strong with settings to get the best pictures. And two 10 second exposures of the ISS.
It was partly cloudy tonight and they were moving fast but I bought a tripod and wanted to at least try. Straight out of the 15PM. Forgot to shoot raw but still came out decent. The clouds were moving which made for a blurry effect but the stars came through.
Just for fun, reading this thread I wanted to see what the 13 mini would do in comparison. Here’s a picture taken in my backyard (Night mode, 1x, handheld 10 seconds exposure):
Sagitta in the middle, Delphinus on the left, the brightest star is Altair (bottom left). I didn’t expect much, but it’s certainly more than I can personally see with the naked eye.
Sagitta in the middle, Delphinus on the left, the brightest star is Altair (bottom left). I didn’t expect much, but it’s certainly more than I can personally see with the naked eye.
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So are you using the stock camera app or a special app. If stock how do you set it to stay open for a set period of time?
Yep stock camera app. Once it’s dark enough and the phone is stabilized, which is key, you can manually adjust the Night Mode from the default 10 secs* (when dark enough, so when I’m doing some night sky shooting) all the way to 30 secs.
*Default Night Mode varies, but under the darkest conditions it’s usually 10 seconds, so you can adjust that out to 30 secs to achieve max exposure.
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I used the 5x camera portrait mode at night time on some of my Nightmare Before Christmas inflatables and I absolutely love how you can choose what you want the focus point to be. Here is the same shot, just different subject is focused. First is Jack, then Sally:
I have to say, Apple did a really nice job on the software to pull this off.
I have to say, Apple did a really nice job on the software to pull this off.
FYI:
The 30” option is only available when the iPhone is on a tripod.
The shot of Andromeda is spectacular, well they all are.
As a side, I was doing math with my oldest daughter and was explaining to her large numbers. She’s in 3rd grade and loves math and space. I explained to her what a light year is. (5.9 Trillion miles or 9.55 Trillion Km per light year. And told her the closest galaxy, Andromeda, is 2.5 million light years away, or 23 quintillion miles 🤯. 23e19 miles or 3.87e19 Km.
Hard to comprehend such distances. And yet, that is the closest galaxy of approximately 1 to as many as 2 trillion galaxies in the observable universe.
The built in accelerometer can tell when the iPhone is being held or at rest. When in night mode, you’ll see the maximum exposure time switch from 10” to 30” when on a tripod and still. Night mode defaults at 5”, so to obtain the maximum exposure time, the exposure slider (looks like a ruler directly above the shutter button) has to be swiped to the left to achieve maximum exposure time. To better explain…. Watch this short video.
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Thank you…
Yeah that is cool indeed. You should also mention since the galaxy is 2.5 million light years away, we are seeing it as it looked 2.5 million years ago since the light is so old by the time it reaches us. I was always interested in science and my dad brought me my first astronomy magazine in 1984. I still have it! And when I got a telescope for a graduation gift, (10” Meade Newtonian) I was hooked. Hopefully your daughter will grow to love astronomy and get a telescope of her own. Astronomy and a telescope always kept me out of trouble LOL. Although by the time I had a 13” Dobsonian & using it one morning in the parking lot of my apartment looking at the planets, a police cruiser pulled up and the officer told me they received a call that someone was outside with a canon! That was funny.
Thanks. So it doesn’t need to be on a tripod, just at rest. That’s what confused me. It also needs to be sufficiently dark, from my tests, otherwise the maximum will be lower.