skyandtelescope.com • AUGUST 2019 67
shoot longer exposures, or even
multiple exposures that you can
later stack to produce an even
smoother result.
The Milky Way is so large that
it will most likely be bigger than
your camera’s fi eld of view. Here
you may want to shoot a pan-
orama of several images by rotat-
ing your tripod between each
exposure, and then stitch the
results together later using an app
or a desktop stitching program.
Be sure to include lots of overlap
between each image so that your
stitching software can recognize
matching foreground objects as well as star patterns.
Another good target for your smart device is aurorae. The
northern (or southern) lights are one of the most beautiful
and rapidly changing events you can see with the naked eye.
Because bright aurorae change appearance very quickly,
I suggest using the highest ISO and a short exposure, but
you’ll need to experiment to determine the shortest shut-
ter speed to adequately record the changing details in these
glowing curtains of light. Some bright aurorae record well in
exposures of just a second or two.
A fi nal consideration when capturing nightscape images
is your foreground. Some basic knowledge about astronomy
is helpful so that you can plan, say, to record a particular
constellation or the Milky Way rising over a snow-capped
mountain or a glassy-smooth lake. You’ll need to plan pre-
cisely where you will need to be set up in order to captureboth in the same image, to give
the picture artistic depth and a
good composition. Several apps
and websites such as the Pho-
tographer’s Ephemeris (photo-
ephemeris.com) can help you
plan where to set up to capture
both your subject and fore-
ground long before you head out
under the stars.
Once you have your images,
you’ll need to perform some post-
processing to bring out the Milky
Way, brighten the foreground, or
stitch together panoramas. You
can do some basic processing
with the photo-editing app included with your smartphone.
For more advanced processing, which almost certainly will
produce better results, bring your images onto a desktop com-
puter and use photo-editing software such as Adobe Photo-
shop. A great tutorial on processing nightscape photos can be
found in S&T: Jan. 2018, p. 36.
With the rapid development of smartphone technology,
soon you’ll no longer need a heavy pack full of cameras and
lenses to take stunning nightscape images. These devices
can drastically reduce the threshold required to enter the
world of astrophotography, inspiring those with just a casual
interest get give it a shot.¢ The World at Night (TWAN) photographer JEFF DAI travels
around the globe to take breathtaking images of the night sky
over picturesque landscapes.pIPHONE CONTROL Although iPhones currently cannot
record exposures longer than ¼ second, the popular app
NightCap Camer a performs live stacking to simulate long
exposures and also includes other important manual controls
for ISO speed, focus, and exposure duration.qLIMITED GEAR Using your smartphone for nightscape photog-
raphy doesn’t add more than a tripod and trigger device to your
gear, making scenes like this campsite silhouette under the Milky
Way a snap.qCLEVER COMPOSITION Nightscape photography is all about creat-
ing a composition that includes an interesting foreground with the stars
above. This view captures stars through radio telescope dishes at Beijing
Observatory in China.CA
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