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Astrophotography · 1 min read

Photograph the Moon with a phone

The simplest astrophotography: hold or clamp your phone to the eyepiece. Settings and steps that work.

You do not need a special camera to take a good Moon photo. Holding a phone camera to the eyepiece - called afocal photography - works with almost any telescope.

What you need

  • Your telescope, focused on the Moon with a low or medium eyepiece (25 mm or 10 mm).
  • A phone. A phone adapter that clamps the phone to the eyepiece makes it far easier, but you can start by hand.

Steps

  1. Focus the telescope by eye on the Moon first.
  2. Line up the phone lens with the centre of the eyepiece, close to it. Move slowly until the bright circle fills the screen.
  3. Tap the Moon on the screen to focus, then lower the exposure (drag the brightness slider down) until craters appear instead of a white blob.
  4. Use zoom lightly (1x-2x) to fill the frame; more zoom just enlarges the blur.
  5. Avoid shake: use the phone's timer or volume-button shutter, or a Bluetooth remote.
  6. Take many shots. Moments of steadier air give sharper frames; keep the best.

Better results

  • Photograph near first or last quarter - shadows along the terminator show the most relief.
  • Shoot when the Moon is high, not near the horizon.
  • Turn off flash and HDR if the image looks unnatural.
  • For more, record a short video and stack the sharpest frames with free software on a computer.

Planets

Jupiter and Saturn are much smaller and dimmer. With a steady adapter and higher magnification, short videos can show Saturn's rings and Jupiter's belts - but expect small images and plenty of practice.

What you will not capture this way

Nebulae and galaxies need long exposures on a tracking mount. That is a separate, more demanding hobby.

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