Milky Way Phone Photography

Written By Samuel Groth

Have you ever seen the milky way and wondered what it would it would take to capture a photo of it? Maybe you despaired thinking that this required thousands of dollar of equipment, but I’m here to tell you that if you can see the milky way with your eyes, most modern cellphones can capture a reasonable image.!

You ask me how I know this? I have captured milky way shots like this one with my Android phone and helped others capture images with their iPhones!!

While it may not be as amazing as the stacked and tracked sky and foreground like this one with my professional level camera, it is quite incredible that in a dark location almost anyone with a cellphone and a tripod is now able to capture a shot of the milky way!

Steps for You to Follow

  1. Make sure you are at a dark location. A light pollution map like the following is helpful: https://www.lightpollutionmap.info/ or Dark Sky International: https://darksky.org/what-we-do/international-dark-sky-places/all-places/

  2. Make sure the weather looks clear and there is no smoke: https://www.astrospheric.com/

  3. Know where the milky way will be located in the sky using a planetarium app. I use https://stellarium.org/

  4. Have a sturdy tripod with a phone mount or some plan on how to keep your phone still during long exposure up to 30 seconds.

  5. Research ahead of time, what are the low light or night capture features of your phone’s camera.

  6. Setup the composition.

  7. For Android, choose pro mode and set your camera’s manual focus to infinity. Also set your camera settings to something like ISO6400 and 30 seconds exposure. Or you can try the night mode.

  8. For iPhone, select night mode set the shutter to 30 seconds. Details in the video above.

  9. Set your camera to have a timer before capture to reduce the possibility that your phone will move during the exposure.

  10. Capture images and reduce the ISO + exposure or over-exposure until you are happy with the image.

  11. Don’t forget to enjoy the view!!

Advanced Tips

Once you have mastered the steps above, you can try:

  1. Standing in the photo to capture yourself against the sky.

  2. Light painting if it is legal where you are.

  3. Capturing in a RAW file format and using a photo editor to get a cleaner image.

Editing

Beyond a Phone

If you are looking to capture photos more detailed than what’s possible with your phone like the second photo in this post, you can buy a dedicated camera + lens, star tracker, and other gear. You can find out more about me: here.

Clear Skies!

Samuel Groth