3 Smartphone Apps for Astrophotography

Here's a quick rundown of three apps I find myself using all the time for Astrophotography: PhotoPills, Sky Safari, and Snapseed.
#fiveminutefridays #nebulaphotos
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[@briankotak403]

Love your 5 minute Fridays. They are so informative and well done! Dr B from Manitoba, Canada

[@TermoneenyCC]

thanks once again Nico for taking the time to post these vlogs.

[@tachyon3.14]

Back to my week n of appreciating Five Minute Fridays comments

[@PagyBio]

Excellent, as usual!

[@burtba]

Awesome. Thanks for that. I own the first two but snapped I haven't used for sevens years. No great surprise it has come a LONG way. I'l give it another go.

[@avt_astro206]

I use Sky safari 6 pro App to Plan My Astrophotography Sessions and Whats Up!! Its My Favourite App. Great Video nico!

[@theisraelielonmusk9116]

Great video!!!! Thanks about the app

[@alex.petkevich]

Smartphone astrophotography! It will be great to see more :)

[@jayvenom29]

Awesome 👏🏿 Don’t sleep on that plan it app! I use that too 🙌🏿

[@JCW7100]

Nico I'm still very much a beginner with astrophotography but you have helped me so much over the past few months! Thanks :)

[@DaxxBrown]

Snapseed is a great app for editing! nice video! ⭐️

[@rudigerbraun9103]

Nice five minutes, thank you!

[@StantonLuke]

Great apps I have 2/3 excited to see more sky!

[@tonycross4451]

Thank you I'm just getting into astrophotography but can't afford all the expensive stuff so using my phone this video helped alot

[@trevsastrophotography]

I use the Snapseed app, thank you for this :)

[@Subhamoffical109]

🙂🙂🔥🔥🔥 love u

[@horizonastronomiaargentina7593]

Excelente Nico 👍 saludos de cielos del Sur!!!

[@R-A-F]

Just bought the Samsung s21 ultra 😁 going to try the snapped app thanks Nico 👍

[@kevinashley478]

Nice!! Maybe you should do a video where you go in depth on the details, options, and reality based uses.

[@PafMedic]

Great Video❤️Weve Had T-Storms Last Few Days Here In NWPA,So Watching And Doing Laundry,lol..Clear Skies and God Bless❤️🙏🏻✨🌏🔭

[@Yu2beFool]

Snapseed is the best app on Android for photography (no I'm not sponsored, it's free). I've used (/ still using) Photoshop, Corel Photo Paint, Paint Shop Pro, Raw Therapee, Affinity Photo. All for PC. For fun and for serious editing, I prefer Snapseed over any smartphone editor.

[@albertogmail8017]

perfect

[@demej00]

I take star photos with my Oppo Reno 4 on a tripod in night mode, then edit with Snapseed and wow, great photos.

[@aldiosmio]

Wow! I never knew Snapseed can be utilised like that!

[@xketo_lolzx]

Used* just helping with language

[@AwismitRana]

Nice

[@michaelklages4367]

Just watched a video of somebody using just a smart phone to shoot the milky way would love to see a shoot out you VS AB (Astro Biscut) with nothing but smartphone and homemade trackers. I'll be trying this myself as soon as I get a clear sky

[@letszoomit365]

Hope to see some iPhone astro photographying from you soon 😀 If you dont use it yourself I know that there are many that do.

[@Metaldetectiontubeworldwide]

great tips Nico ! photopills looks very good , is it a one time buy or a anual fee ? gonna check it anyway , what a great milkywayshot with your phone , masterb you are !

[@NebulaPhotos]

It's a one time buy. Very good value

[@Metaldetectiontubeworldwide]

@@NebulaPhotos thanks alot nico , have a nice day ( or astro night) lol ;)

[@actudoran]

Hi Nico! What phone are you using to shoot?

[@toloman]

I saw you have Photopills and TPE both installed. How do the planning features of TPE compare to Photopills ?

[@FredOzzie]

I'd like to see afocal astrophotography videos including stacking. I had a very disappointing photo of M45, Pleiades using NightCap in iPhone with 243 frames, each an average of 15 1/15 sec exposures (thus total of 3645 exposures). But stacking produced blue artifacts that I could not eliminate even trying several stacking attempts unless I eliminated bias frames and then background turned green.

[@NebulaPhotos]

That's definitely something I want to try out. I've only done very limited tests on the Ring Nebula.

[@FredOzzie]

@@NebulaPhotos If you want to see the blue artifacts, let me know. I have a screenshot from DSS and (I think) an autosave tiff file (or jpeg compressed version) that I could send you if you tell me where.

[@NebulaPhotos]

@@FredOzzie Sure. [e-mail]

[@Videomakerrobin]

Love the video but i need a stacking photos app sadly cant find them

[@Astrostuff_Official]

Yes snapseed works i tried it.

[@wmclt5588]

I enjoy your videos. Have you ever tried to shoot video of this ISS station going past at dusk. it takes five or six minutes to transit in our area at nightfall. Have Shot individual hand held pictures with my iPhone and will be getting a tripod to see if I can get a better set of photos. If I zoomed in and stacked the photos-what do you think I would see Say I take three second exposures and try and stack about 16 exposures. Manually realign the iPhone every time between exposures.

[@darrensweet2124]

Hi can you stack images on Snapseed for deepsky objects. Thanks 👍

[@GeekySai]

Try skyportal which is a basically free version of skysafari 😁

[@jdanielzz]

We desperately need your phone astro tutorial, tracker vs no tracker and post process, pleeeaasee 🙏🙏 Is it realistic to expect good results for nebula pictures using the phone...without tracker, Andromeda at least? Also do you shoot in raw or jpeg on your phone? Snapseed does not allow raw photos processing, and I found Lightroom is giving more options for processing of raw. The only downside of shooting in raw on the phone is a lot of noise...can be fixed in Lightroom though but not perfectly I'd say.

[@jeffreypepps2110]

How many times do you wanna blink? Him: Yes

[@TermoneenyCC]

Have you been drinking again?

[@robertbarnes2598]

Have you tried deepskycamera for your phone? Just make sure you change the directory right off.

[@lambentkith1]

A really good app on Android I use is Nightshift.

[@einzwei3364]

Hi Nico, I really enjoy your videos. Could you recommend a few android smartphones that were not bolted down to 10sec. exposure time and iso 800. Since the last security update my old samsung s7 went from 30sec. to only 10 sec. exposure time and from iso 3200 to only iso 800, which is a real shame as i just installed a new battery as i wanted to use the phone for astrophotography. with only 10sec and iso 800 it really is not so nice as it has been before.

[@NebulaPhotos]

Before you buy a different phone, see if Deep Sky Camera app lets you get past those limitations: play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=de.seebi.deepskycamera&hl=en_US&gl=US I just started exploring it, but it seems useful. I had to set it to JPEG+Raw for it to actually take photos on my device.

[@einzwei3364]

@@NebulaPhotos Great app. Thanks for the hint. Unfortunately it seems that the system update has downgraded the camera specs on the os/firmware side of things. so there is no way to unlock the cam without putting a non standard android onto the phone. well now i know that my next phone is not going to be a samsung.

[@Mikeo90]

Abit late on this but Gcam on Android has an astrophotography mode. Stacks images, auto shutter speed. Point and shoot basically. Amazing photos from it also on Samsung galaxy s21

[@homesteadandvideo]

Any camera apps for astro shooting android ?

[@anantbuddhisagar9077]

Nico suggest some tips for smartphone Astrophotography 😊👍🙏💯.

[@robertbarnes2598]

@@Cuntymccuntface123 I like to try some phone astrophotography while I have my camera set up.

[@michaelfeng1716]

Hi Nico, I have some questions on exposure settings for dslr tracked astrophotography that perhaps you could clarify? I have a canon 60D and a star adventurer, with a Samyang 135mm lens. With this set up at f2, what exposure time and iso settings should be used? I’ve seen from your previous videos that for the 60D tracked a good iso setting is 1600. However when I use 1 minute long exposures this iso setting makes my images very bright. (I was shooting lobster + cat’s paw nebulae) I can bring the histogram bump to about 1/3 over using only ISO 400. So should I just use ISO 400 for the dynamic range, or 1600 for lower read noise, but resulting in a very bright sub?

[@NebulaPhotos]

No, still use ISO1600, and decrease shutter speed until the exposure is correct. If at 30" the exposure is still a bit bright, but the overall histogram peak is at 50% or under, I'd probably go with that. ISO400 is too low for Canon cameras and all kinds of noise problems like horizontal banding (even after calibration) are more likely to occur in my experience.

[@michaelfeng1716]

@@NebulaPhotos thank you for your reply, I will do that next time I go shoot! Hopefully I’ll have a clear day soon.

[@beni44]

Personally I am a stellarium fan, but snapspeed definetely helped me :)

[@mBaggins]

I downloaded Sky safari 6 Pro but i find it really confusing to use. I have no idea what im doing :(

[@f.mitchell5247]

I like snapseed personally

[@jorgerodriguez-gf2zf]

Thank you I wanna take pictures with my iPhone 14 Pro Max of the Milky Way

[@28thjan]

Can I shoot milkyway using iPhone 13?

[@deeber35]

How accurate do you think apps like Sky View are? Within a degree or 2? I'd be using it to aim a sky tracker since I cannot see the north star where I am.

[@NebulaPhotos]

They can be off by more than a degree, depends on the magnetic drift in your area. Any form of 'drift align' will be more accurate than relying on a phone/compass method for polar alignment.

[@deeber35]

@@NebulaPhotos So if I can't see the north star, what can I do to set up my tracker?

[@NebulaPhotos]

For wide angle lenses, the app method would be fine. For telephoto lenses, you should look in to 'drift alignment' - basically looking at a star to the east or west on your camera, and adjusting the polar alignment until the star stops drifting.

[@achemvenkatamuni9567]

Sir, is to possible to shoot milkyway with 10 seconds shutter speed and ISO 800?

[@NebulaPhotos]

Yes, what really matters is getting to a dark location

[@achemvenkatamuni9567]

@@NebulaPhotos Thank you for the reply🙂

[@samsen3965]

May I ask: "Why not Stellarium mobile"? That is simply my favorite of all.

[@NebulaPhotos]

Because sky safari pro has many more features I find useful. Also, I wasn't personally a fan of Stellarium mobile's UI. I do love it on the desktop though.

[@w124mohammedmousa]

@@NebulaPhotos What do you think of the P30 Pro in 2022

[@NebulaPhotos]

@@w124mohammedmousa Still a great phone. I want to try the new Sony Xperia phones, but they are so expensive, I haven't yet.

[@w124mohammedmousa]

@@NebulaPhotos Thank you very much Sony mobiles are worth owning but their prices are exaggerated Thanks for the quick reply Forward

[@Unknown-tk4ul]

I'd prefer the Adobe Lightroom app instead of Snapseed.

[@ingzimmerman899]

Do You have one on Phone Camera Apps?

[@cloudynights8796]

Hello sir can u pls tell who won the giveaway which u held for 50k subs

[@NebulaPhotos]

Sky-watcher Star Adventurer Pro Pack - Melissa M. Canon 60D with extras - Anindith B. SVBONY CLS light pollution filter (2") - Skip F. Astronomik CLS light pollution filter (2") - Manuel C. Optolong L-Pro light pollution filter (2") - Steve F. It was announced in the following places: the video description of the giveaway video, community tab of this channel, twitter, instagram

[@cloudynights8796]

@@NebulaPhotos oh sorry. My mistake. I m not on ig n twitter so I didn't knew 😓

[@NebulaPhotos]

@@cloudynights8796 No problem. Better luck next time!

[@cloudynights8796]

@@NebulaPhotos thanks😃😅

[@ME10920]

UK sky's are always cloudy 🥴

[@omer8725]

Guys watch later write commend...

[@BoldFollower]

Why do snapseed when the phones already have the same settings?

[@NebulaPhotos]

Watch at 5:00 - I don't know of any built-in camera app that allows me to manipulate the green channel with a curve adjustment

[@samsen3965]

Yes. This is the way the future is moving towards. Also, I have a feeling that GoPro (or likewise, high-quality action cameras) will take their pie of Astrophotography. I forecast "BIGTIME"!

[@malaravan.mmalaravan.m3809]

You are looking like a modern paul McCartney!!!!!!!.

[@morganfj]

Better android app than these and cheaper. Just my opinion

[@stefandrost7823]

1:11 haha funny number