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!

    • Zer0_F0x@lemmy.worldOPEnglish
      5·
      3 days ago

      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.

  • dkppunk@piefed.socialEnglish
    4·
    3 days ago

    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 💚

    • Zer0_F0x@lemmy.worldOPEnglish
      3·
      3 days ago

      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!

    • Zer0_F0x@lemmy.worldOPEnglish
      4·
      3 days ago

      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!

    • Zer0_F0x@lemmy.worldOPEnglish
      2·
      3 days ago

      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!