Outside of your camera equipment, your biggest asset to your astrophotography shoot may just be the device in your pocket. Yes, your smartphone can help you take better astrophotography images with a wide range of apps dedicated to photography. Today, we’ll be reviewing some of the best astrophotography apps in 2023.
Best Astrophotography Apps
PhotoPills
Why We Chose This App: PhotoPills is loaded with features to help you shoot the Milky Way, meteor showers, star trails, and even daytime photos.
Photopills is a must-have app for astrophotographers, especially if the Milky Way is your target. If you didn’t already know, the Milky Way appears in a set direction in the sky at a certain angle every night. The angle and location changes slightly every night, so finding the best place to shoot the Milky Way isn’t as easy as just going outside. PhotoPills allows you to pull up a map and adjust the date and time in order to find when the Milky Way is going to be in the perfect spot. It includes things like the moon phases along with moonrise and moonset time, sunset and sunrise times, and more. Using PhotoPills easily lets you plan out your Milky Way shoot in order to achieve the best photos.
PhotoPills is also an amazing app when you’re in the field. You can use augmented reality to see the location of the Milky Way, sun, or moon at any given time using the camera on your smartphone. This can help you to plan compositions at a particular location in advance. Additionally, PhotoPills contains many kinds of calculators that photographers would find useful for things like exposure, FOV, star trails, and more.
Celestron SkyPortal
Why We Chose This App: This app will keep you entertained on long photography nights, but also help you to know what is worth shooting in the night sky on any given night.
If you’ve ever wondered just what it is that you’re photographing in the night sky, Celestron’s SkyPortal app might be for you. If you own a compatible Celestron telescope, you can control the telescope straight from the app. But don’t worry, even those without a telescope will get great use out of the SkyPortal app.
The SkyPortal app has over 120,000 stars, 200 star clusters, nebulae, galaxies, and dozens of asteroids, comets, and satellites for you to learn about. You can use augmented reality to point your smartphone at the sky and see all of the celestial objects available for viewing. Tapping on an object brings up text that gives you information about the object you are looking at. Additionally, you can view the night sky up to 100 years in the past or in the future. The app can even put together a custom list of the night’s best features from your time and location so that you know what to look out for, making it easy to pick the right objects to photograph. Finally, you have the ability to browse hundreds of astronomical photos and NASA spacecraft images for inspiration and viewing pleasure.
SkySafari 6
Why We Chose This App: The pro version of the SkySafari 6 app has the largest mobile database of stars, galaxies, and solar system objects available on market for all of your sky-watching needs.
SkySafari 6 is another app where you can see what is in the night sky from anywhere on earth. SkySafari offers three different apps — SkySafari 6, SkySafari 6 Plus, and SkySafari 6 Pro. The SkySafari 6 app shows 120,000 stars, 222 nebulae, star clusters, and galaxies, compared to over 100 million stars and 3 million galaxies down to the 18th magnitude seen in SkySafari 6 Pro.
Additionally, the SkySafari 6 Plus and Pro apps can control compatible computer-controlled telescopes or you can just point your smartphone at the sky to identify different celestial objects. You can also view hundreds of images from NASA space missions, the Hubble Space Telescope, and the world’s most foremost astrophotographers.
Light Pollution Map
Why We Chose This App: You need dark, clear skies for astrophotography and this app helps you find them.
Light pollution and astrophotography are two things that don’t go well together. Finding a spot with the least amount of light pollution possible is going to help you to capture better astrophotography. The Light Pollution Map app shows you a variety of useful things for astrophotography, most notably a world map showing you the light pollution in any given area. This is perfect for photographers that live in the city who want to know where to travel to find the darkest, clearest skies.
The Light Pollution Map app doesn’t just stop there. Additionally, you can view things like cloud cover, aurora, and more in order to help you capture the best photos possible. All of these features are shown on a world map, so it’s easy to browse around and find an area near you to capture photos of the night sky. Finally, you also have the ability to save your favorite locations so that you can quickly check all of your favorite local spots when you have a night available to go out and shoot.
Clear Outside
Why We Chose This App: Clear Outside is loaded with useful data surrounding the weather, giving you access to find the clearest skies for astrophotography quickly and easily.
For all things weather, the Clear Outside app is a great solution. Clear Outside offers much more advanced weather forecasts for locations than a traditional weather forecast. Simply put in a location and you’ll get an hourly forecast up to six days in advance that shows total cloud cover percentage, low/medium/high cloud percentage, visibility, any forecasted rain, and much more. Most importantly for astrophotography, you can use this to find clear, or mostly clear, skies. If you want some clouds in your shot, this app will tell you if you can expect high, medium or low clouds, or even fog.
You can save locations by using names or coordinates in order to quickly select them from your list, or you can have the app show data about your current spot. Unlike most weather apps, which rely heavily on words and images to show predictions, the Clear Outside app is formatted by a table, which shows how the forecast changes each and every hour. Lastly, it even tells you when there is an International Space Station flyover for photographers that either want to capture the space station or avoid it in their frame.
NightCap Camera
Why We Chose This App: NightCap Camera is one of the best and most advanced night sky photography apps for shooting astrophotography with your smartphone.
If you want to take photos after dark on your smartphone, NightCap Camera is the perfect app for you. After dark, most smartphones struggle to capture high quality photos, but NightCap Camera allows you to unlock the potential of your smartphone with special night photography settings. For new users, you can use the AI camera control to automatically adjust the focus and exposure for a brighter and clearer shot. For users familiar with the settings on a DSLR or mirrorless camera, you can manually adjust the settings in NightCap Camera.
NightCap Camera offers amazing astrophotography photos, videos, and 4K timelapse by using long exposure. Long exposure mode can give motion blur effects during the day, and help to reduce the noise and increase the detail in your night time photos. Best of all, NightCap has an ISO boost feature allowing a 4x higher ISO than any other photography app, resulting in brighter images otherwise not obtainable on a smartphone. You can choose between four modes to best capture your scene. Stars mode is ideal for starry skies. Aurora is perfect for the Northern Lights. ISS helps you capture photos of the international space station, and shooting stars mode is your go-to mode for meteor showers.
ISS Detector
Why We Chose This App: If you want to see or photograph the International Space Station or any other satellite, the ISS Detector app has everything you need.
Did you know that you can see the International Space Station (ISS) with the naked eye if you know where to look? That’s where the ISS Detector app comes in. The ISS Detector app will tell you exactly where the ISS is at any given time. Once set up, this app will alert you a few minutes before the ISS is going to pass overhead, and it will tell you which direction to look. Additionally, the ISS Detector will check for clear skies, as you’ll need at least partially clear skies in order to spot the Space Station.
While the app just started off as a way to alert you about the ISS, it has now expanded and gives users the options to see many other famous satellites. Whether you want to track Starlink satellite trains, the Hubble space telescope, rocket bodies, Vanguard 1, or any other bright satellite, the ISS Detector app will let you do it all. If you haven’t yet, it’s worth photographing the space station while you’re already out there, especially if you can capture it during a solar or lunar transit, where the satellite passes in front of the moon or sun.
Sky Live: Heavens Above Viewer
Why We Chose This App: This app is loaded with features for photographers and contains weather information.
The Heavens Above app has information regarding both the weather and what you can expect to see in the sky, making it essential for astrophotography. First, you can use the stargazing index to see the conditions for stargazing on any particular night. Weather, moonphase, and more are taken into account and the app will tell you whether or not it’s a good night for stargazing and astrophotography. Then, you can see the rise and set times for the sun, moon, and any planets you can expect to see that particular evening. On another page, you’ll see the ISS trajectory and the people on board. Finally, you can check out the weather forecast for the temperature, cloudiness, visibility, wind, humidity, and light pollution percentage in order to find the best location and the best night for astrophotography.
For those on an iPhone with an Apple Watch, you can even configure an extension to have your watch alert you about any upcoming astronomical event. Sky Live: Heavens Above Viewer aims to give the astrophotographer and night sky viewer all of the tools they need in order to experience and capture the night sky all under one roof in this smartphone app.
Star Trails
Why We Chose This App: Star Trails is the perfect app for smartphone or DSLR photographers who want to make star trail images without having to wait hours for their camera to finish an exposure.
The Star Trails app does exactly what you think it does: helps you make star trail images. Star trails are normally captured with exposures that span hours long. However, the Star Trails app will save you time and energy. You can import a single long exposure image of the night sky, choose the blend mode, and then the Star Trails app will give you a final image where it will turn your single image into a star trail. You can also use comet mode to give your image a shooting star effect, rather than a star trail. Best of all, you can either use an image you took on your phone, or you can even upload a RAW file for photographers shooting on their DSLR or mirrorless camera.
Unfortunately, this app is only on Android, but it does pair very well with any of the smartphone night sky photography apps. Simply capture your image in one of the camera apps, and then you can instantly bring it into Star Trails to create a beautiful star trail image in just seconds.
Photographer’s Ephemeris
Why We Chose This App: This is another go-to app for planning Milky Way and meteor shower shoots, providing all the information you need to successfully pick the right night to go out shooting.
The Photographer’s Ephemeris is your go-to app for all things planning when it comes to astrophotography and the Milky Way. You can use The Photographer’s Ephemeris either on mobile or desktop, and both give you access to a huge assortment of features. Most notably, this app helps you to plan your composition by telling you what time twilight ends, when and where the moon rises and sets, and which direction and angle the Milky Way will appear. You can even get a 3D representation of the Milky Way, helping you to visualize your shot in advance. The iOS app even shows upcoming major meteor showers, solar and lunar eclipse information, and the position of many of the major stars in the sky.
Photographer’s Ephemeris also gives you access to augmented reality in order to help you find the perfect composition in the field hours before you need to be capturing the photo. Simply hold up your phone and you’ll be able to adjust the time to see the sun, moon, Milky Way, and more for any day or time of the year.
AstroShader
Why We Chose This App: This is truly an all-in-one app for capturing, stacking, and editing night photography. The use of stacking will help you achieve higher quality images than you would on most any other phone app.
If you’ve ever shot astrophotography on your DSLR or mirrorless camera, you may have used a common technique called image stacking, where you take multiple exposures of the same image and then later stack them on the computer to reduce noise and increase detail. Well, now there is a way to do that directly on your smartphone. The AstroShader app eliminates the need to go through the whole process of transferring your photos to the computer, uploading them into a software, and then waiting for the results. In the AstroShader app, you can capture, stack, and edit your astrophotography all in one place. All you need is a tripod, telescope, or rock to lean your phone on while it captures photos.
For experienced users, this app allows you to manually set the exposure time, ISO, and white balance, as well as the number of exposures to automatically align and stack. Once the image is ready, you can save and edit your image, even as a 16 bit TIFF file. These are certainly some impressive features that are all made possible by the power of your smartphone camera.
Astrophotography App FAQs
Yes. The NightCap Camera is an app that will help you capture images in low light and night time situations. It allows you to boost your smartphone’s ISO capabilities by 4x, ultimately improving the brightness of your night photos.
There are many apps that help you find the Milky Way galaxy, but some of the most popular include PhotoPills, Photographers Ephemeris, Celestron SkyPortal, and SkySafari 6.
The astrophotography stacking app for iPhone is called AstroShader, which allows you to capture, stack, and edit astrophotography photos on your iPhone. You can manually set the controls on this app in order to achieve an image of the night sky exactly the way you want it.
Picking up a quality phone tripod and an app like NightCap Camera or AstroShader is a great place to start. These apps will help guide you through the process, allowing you to pick the ideal settings and give you the highest quality image possible.
Conclusion
Gone are the days of point, shoot, and hope you get lucky for astrophotography. Apps make our lives as photographers so much easier, and these are some of the best astrophotography apps available in 2023. For the best results, combine a few of these apps to help you capture the best astrophotography images under the right conditions.
