Cell-estial Photos

A newer cell phone can take excellent images of astronomical targets. As twilight segues to night, set your phone for 3- to 10-second exposures, point skyward, click, and hold still. The results will amaze you. Among attainable sights are Crux, the Southern Cross; bright comets; the site of the T Coronae Borealis nova; the Milky Way: double stars; Starlink satellites, aurorae, planets, and lunar eclipses. Additionally, by day see Venus, the moon, sun halos, and sunsets.

Whereas a long duration exposure formerly yielded a blurry image if the camera were not steady, a modern phone aligns and stacks an extended sequence of images. The results are featured celestial phenomena in front of focused, bright stars beyond what the naked eye can see.

These images are taken with the iPhone camera in automatic mode, with the only change being sometimes to set the exposure from the default 3 seconds up to 10 seconds. Zoom in to see image details. See Techniques for setting an iPhone manually.

Examples

Five major stars of Crux, the Southern Cross, are visible briefly from southern Florida when Crux stands upright on the Gulf of Mexico. Around it are the constellations of the southern hemisphere; 2025 January 31, 4:35 AM.

The Milky Way shines over the Bruce Peninsula, Ontario, appearing as bands of white interrupted by dark patches. The diffuse white light is the collective output of millions of stars, with more stars obscured by the dust lanes of interstellar nebulae; 2022 August 23, 11:52 PM.

Aurora Borealis, the Northern Lights, dominate the sky over Scotland as a converging crescent moon and its reflection set together; 2024 May 10, 11:59 PM.

Comet Tsuchinshan-ATLAS visible over Lake Michigan; low airplanes approach the glow above Chicago; bright Jupiter setting under the right edge of the tree; and Corona Borealis, the Northern Crown, site of anticipated T CrB nova; 2024 October 20, 8:10 PM.

An eclipsed moon sets over Lake Michigan as the sun rises; 2022 November 8, 7:34 AM.

The crown of Corona Borealis--site of nova T Coronae Borealis--is encircled by a basketball hoop. 2025 April 20, 5:32 AM.

A bright string of about 60 Starlink satellites slices across the sky during the Super Bowl; 2023 February 12, 7:40 PM.

Venus in the daytime sky just before sunset; 2025, January 31, 6:07 PM.

Winter night scene;

Cygnus the Swan, also known as the Northern Cross, is highlighted among constellations found in the Summer Triangle (in red).

Venus and Jupiter in western twilight; 2023 February 17, 6:51 PM.

End of total lunar eclipse; 2025 March 14, 3:32 AM.

Sun halo; 2020 February 2, 2:18 PM.

Sunset over Gulf of Mexico; 2022 February 19.

Other...

https://www.nightwise.org/single-post/dark-side-of-two-moons

https://www.nightwise.org/single-post/2018/02/15/watch-the-full-moon-not-happen

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