Milky Way phone shot
Hello!
While shooting with my camera and star tracker, I thought I'd try a Milky Way shot with my phone.
That's me pointing up!
Single 30 sec shot with a Galaxy S25.
Used my shoe as a tripod, set a 10 second timer and ran to lie down in time lol
I also put my gfs phone on the other shoe with the display unlocked facing us, as a very faint diffuse light so that we appear bright enough in the foreground.
Edited in free mobile Lightroom, just cropped a bit and then played around with contrast, brightness, saturation and denoise. Took the photo in RAW format, if you attempt it yourself this helps a lot during editing.
It's surprising how much detail you can get out of a phone camera these days...
Feedback appreciated!
13 replies
The stars are gorgeous but that moon is truly something special
🤣
Amazing shot! Where were you to get that clarity on the milky way?
Thanks! You need a really dark sky for this much clarity, away from light pollution.
You can use something like lightpollutionmap.info to find the darkest skies near you.
I took this one from a Bortle 3 spot, which is pretty much the best I can hope for where I live.
The only way to get darker skies than this without going to the top of a tall mountain is the middle of a desert, or generally over 30 miles from the nearest artificial light source.
This reminds me of when I went camping in the desert. My buddy woke me in the middle of the night and told me to come outside and look at the stars. I unzipped the tent, looked up, and saw the most beautiful scene of the Milky Way I’ve ever seen in my 40+ years. Seeing it with my own eyes was better than any photograph could capture (though yours is fantastic)
Thank you for reminding me of that memory 💚
I first went camping at that same beach 3 years ago.
It was a really warm summer night and I woke up at 2 am all sweaty. No wind at all. The sea was like glass and that same milky way was high in the sky.
Woke my gf up and we went for a swim at 2am... There are bioluminescent algae in the water, which we didn't know, which gave out a faint light if you disturbed the water. Sparkles all around!
Top 3 memory to this day, like a fever dream.
Glad I reminded you of yours!
That sounds like a lovely memory! Thank you for sharing 💚
A cellphone took this?
Indeed it did! It's a single photo with no AI or fake edit tricks involved. If you have semi-decent phone, clear dark skies and a bit of time to tinker with the settings, you can do it too.
I'm considering taking multiple shots with a tripod next time to stack later and really push what this phone can deliver, hopefully soon if the weather clears up!
Amazing. Makes me wanna give it a shot. Never taken a picture anything like this!
Nice
The light on the two of you was brilliant. Love the picture!
Thank you! For a 30 sec exposure you really only need a tiny amount of light, so just leaving the display on at ~2m away does the trick in a pinch!