One degree per second: the Space Station with a phone
It arrives on schedule, crosses the sky in minutes and does not come back. How to plan, frame and blend an ISS pass with nothing but a smartphone.
Read →3SIGNUM: smartphone astrophotography
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Your phone sees the aurora before your eyes do
A grey cloud above the treeline that doesn't drift like a cloud. The sensor hands it back green: why that happens, how to forecast it, how long to expose.
A star as wide as the Moon: the Sun with a phone
The only star you can shoot at noon, and the only one that can blind you. Filters, exposure, and how many pixels the disc and its spots really cover.
Star trails with a phone: when the blur is the subject
Your phone will never hand you an hour-long exposure, and you do not need one. Star trails get built by keeping the maximum instead of the mean.
Nothing up there is white: white balance for night skies on a phone
Your phone guesses the light source in a scene with no neutral surface, and guesses again every frame. How to lock it, and what colour work waits till later.
Seeing is not your problem: reading an astronomy forecast with a phone
One phone pixel covers seventy arcseconds and seeing is worth two. Which row of the forecast actually decides your night, and the order to read them in.
Finding the target: aiming a phone at something your eyes cannot see
Andromeda spans six full Moons and stays invisible to the naked eye. Degrees measured with your fist, a scouting frame as a finder, wide-angle star hops.
