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GuruZac

macrumors 68040
Sep 9, 2015
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Yes it is. Cool, you know your celestial objects.
Love your shots, incredible! I shot this last year with my 13 Pro using stock camera app and manually adjusted exposure to 30 seconds. I managed to get Andromeda near the center of the shot and was blown away. I love astrophotography. No doubt your shots are much more impressive, and the new sensor is really nice.
96CA1B1A-AC9A-446D-BB8B-55C4734B6085.jpeg
 

ToddH

macrumors 68030
Original poster
Jul 5, 2010
2,650
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Central Tx
Love your shots, incredible! I shot this last year with my 13 Pro using stock camera app and manually adjusted exposure to 30 seconds. I managed to get Andromeda near the center of the shot and was blown away. I love astrophotography. No doubt your shots are much more impressive, and the new sensor is really nice. View attachment 2073051
Thank you. I totally enjoy Astro photography as well. It’s a lot of fun. I have a lot of images that I captured with my Nikon and Sony cameras from Fort Davis Texas where the skies are very dark. Big Bend national park is also extremely dark.
 

ToddH

macrumors 68030
Original poster
Jul 5, 2010
2,650
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Sure thing. I have this one as well for my 10 inch dob
Amazing photos!

Can you say which Celestron holder please?
I had an 8" dobsonian telescope for my fiftieth a month ago and it's so amazing and I'd love to capture images on my new 14 Pro Max. I nearly bought a mount for my 13 Pro Max when I first got the scope but reviews of not fitting larger phones put me off

Sure Thing. I use this particular cell phone mount as well for my telescope and it works really well. It doesn’t fit the big giant eye pieces but a majority of them it will and it comes with spacers etc. for the smaller eye pieces. good luck, you’ll need to share some photos if you get this.

Celestron – NexYZ – 3–Axis Universal Smartphone Adapter for Telescope – Digiscoping Smartphone Adapter – Capture Images and Video Through Your Telescope or Spotting Scope https://www.amazon.com/Celestron-3-Axis-Universal-Smartphone-Adapter/dp/B07D7V3B8M
 
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ToddH

macrumors 68030
Original poster
Jul 5, 2010
2,650
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Love your shots, incredible! I shot this last year with my 13 Pro using stock camera app and manually adjusted exposure to 30 seconds. I managed to get Andromeda near the center of the shot and was blown away. I love astrophotography. No doubt your shots are much more impressive, and the new sensor is really nice. View attachment 2073051
Thanks… I hope to do more soon. I just wish Apple would give us more than 30 seconds of exposure time for this stuff. At least three minutes would be great at lower ISO.
 

Pug72

macrumors 68000
Mar 18, 2012
1,961
1,873
England
Thanks @ToddH , I'd seen that one but needed reassurance it would work ok as it's on the pricier side.
So if it works fine on the Pro Max iPhones I think I'll get one.
 
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ToddH

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Jul 5, 2010
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Thanks @ToddH , I'd seen that one but needed reassurance it would work ok as it's on the pricier side.
So if it works fine on the Pro Max iPhones I think I'll get one.
It does work pretty good. Just be sure to tighten all the clamps & knobs so the phone won’t shift much.
 
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Pug72

macrumors 68000
Mar 18, 2012
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It does work pretty good. Just be sure to tighten all the clamps & knobs so the phone won’t shift much.
Yep, also I have bluetooth remote that came with a small tripod mount so I can take pictures without needing to touch the phone. 👍
 
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ToddH

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Jul 5, 2010
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I appreciate everybody that has liked and commented on this post, I didn’t think that it would be that popular. I wish I would’ve thought to use the 2X crop to get a little closer to the objects, but I was too busy fighting off mosquitoes because I didn’t bring any spray so they took all of my concentration and I didn’t stay out there long lol.
 

TheSynchronizer

macrumors 6502
Dec 2, 2014
440
728
Nicely done, and a nice example of the new camera's capabilities. We may indeed be getting to years where the year to year camera upgrades aren't so noticeable in regular, daily photos, but are major in specialised situations like these / more extreme conditions like low light photography.
 
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Saturn007

macrumors 65816
Jul 18, 2010
1,494
1,386
Todd, impressive photos! Have several questions and observations.

1. Any chance of your taking the original photo and simply changing the dark level and posting that?

2. I do some wide-field astrophotography with digital cameras and, if I over-expose in post-processing, I end up with lots of background noise masquerading as stars! What I'm seeing in several of the photos reminds me of that.

3. I've found it incredibly helpful to compare the “stars” showing up in my photos with the actual ones in astronomy apps, such as Sky Safari. In such sky charting, planetarium apps, you can set the faintest (lowest) star magnitude and then match what's shown against your photos, identifying stars and star patterns, and determining what's real and what are artifacts.

Doing that helps determine how much the images are over-processed — inducing stellar artifacts — and how much that needs to be dialed back. Have you tried doing that?

4. I've been tempted to get an iPhone with night mode, but only if I can figure out, in advance, how much better the images would be. So, I’d be interested in learning how faint the stars are that you're actually capturing.

5. Clearly, dark skies matter. What's the limiting magnitude for the unaided eye where you took the photos?

6. I'd also be curious what the Milky Way — and Andromeda Galaxy — look like from your home taken by the iPhone on a simple tripod. Any chance of posting a photo or two from there? Of course, we'd need to know what its LM is, too.

In any case, keep up the good work — and know that you have a receptive audience!
 

ToddH

macrumors 68030
Original poster
Jul 5, 2010
2,650
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Todd, impressive photos! Have several questions and observations.

1. Any chance of your taking the original photo and simply changing the dark level and posting that?

2. I do some wide-field astrophotography with digital cameras and, if I over-expose in post-processing, I end up with lots of background noise masquerading as stars! What I'm seeing in several of the photos reminds me of that.

3. I've found it incredibly helpful to compare the “stars” showing up in my photos with the actual ones in astronomy apps, such as Sky Safari. In such sky charting, planetarium apps, you can set the faintest (lowest) star magnitude and then match what's shown against your photos, identifying stars and star patterns, and determining what's real and what are artifacts.

Doing that helps determine how much the images are over-processed — inducing stellar artifacts — and how much that needs to be dialed back. Have you tried doing that?

4. I've been tempted to get an iPhone with night mode, but only if I can figure out, in advance, how much better the images would be. So, I’d be interested in learning how faint the stars are that you're actually capturing.

5. Clearly, dark skies matter. What's the limiting magnitude for the unaided eye where you took the photos?

6. I'd also be curious what the Milky Way — and Andromeda Galaxy — look like from your home taken by the iPhone on a simple tripod. Any chance of posting a photo or two from there? Of course, we'd need to know what its LM is, too.

In any case, keep up the good work — and know that you have a receptive audience!
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

4083E7F5-41E7-4E00-A5CC-6FD2190281BD.jpeg


6013C52C-7CE0-4F2F-AF76-D9DF2F4B3234.jpeg
 

nintendoswitch

macrumors regular
Jul 7, 2021
188
141
That is amazing. Sure wish my dad could help me upgrade my XS to a 14 pro or pro max! I don’t have the money lol
 

rjjacobson

macrumors demi-god
Sep 12, 2014
8,277
25,665
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
For those of us with just the phones clarification. What is a skywatcher star adventurer? I am assuming something on telescope that tracks the same point but you can attach phone to it? 30” means second exposure? Not familiar with use of the ” symbol with time usually degrees minute seconds longitude’s and such. If we have a stand to hold phone still I assume too much movement of star field to do this without setup like yours I have the free lighroom and few other image and graphics. Programs but no monthly subscription version so not sure how much improvements I can do but wow beautiful shot
 
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