Astrophotography: Capturing the full moon and meteors

Astrophotography
Capturing the full moon and meteors

Lots happening in the skies nowadays! Did you know you can take just as great astrophotography on your smartphone?

You might assume that it is only possible to capture stars in the night sky through professional camera equipment, but we're here to tell you that you can take just as great shots with your smartphones.

The Flower Moon and the Eta Aquariid meteor shower peaked on Friday, May 5th. But there is still plenty of Moon visible and the meteor shower, although not at peak, is still active and you could still see some shooting stars overnight.

It's simple, all you have to do is follow these steps:

Grab your smartphone! It'll need a fairly decent camera

Use a phone tripod if you have one handy, if not, it is possible to rest your phone on a sturdy surface instead

On your camera;

On iPhones, select the Night Mode icon and slide all the way to the longest capture time of around 10 seconds

On Samsung Galaxy, swipe to tape More, then Night

On Google Pixel, tap Night Sight, there is even a specific Astrophotography mode too

On Sony, tap the Night Shooting icon

On Xiaomi, enable Night Mode, you can also manually adjust features yourself via 'More' > 'Exposition Prolonged'

On Huawei, select Night Mode

After, you can edit the photo to bring the stars out more, especially if any light pollution interferes. This can be done by increasing the Black Point and lifting Shadows.

If you grab any spectacular shots of the sky, send them to us through our dedicated uploader for us to feature!

May's astro activityread more

Weather & Radar USA editorial team

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