How to photograph the Moon and planets with your smartphone
No need for a professional camera or a motorized mount costing several thousand euros: the Moon, and even certain planets, can be photographed quite well with a recent smartphone and a bit of method.
See the shop ↓| Smartphone-to-Telescope Adapter | Entry-Level Planetary Camera | |
|---|---|---|
| Price | Around €64 | Around €103 |
| Rating | ||
| Who it's for | Beginner | Advanced |
| View on Amazon | View on Amazon |
The Moon, the ideal target for beginners
The Moon is by far the simplest and most rewarding target to photograph in amateur astronomy: it is bright, unlike most other celestial targets, which allows for very short exposure times and limits problems with motion blur or digital noise. A smartphone simply held up to the eyepiece of a telescope or binoculars — a technique called afocal photography — is already enough to capture surprising images of lunar craters and seas, especially near the terminator, the line separating lunar day and night, where the terrain is accentuated by raking shadows.
The main difficulty with handheld afocal photography is alignment: you need to precisely center the phone's lens on the axis of the eyepiece, which takes a bit of patience the first few times. An inexpensive smartphone-telescope adapter solves this problem by keeping the phone perfectly aligned and steady.
The manual settings that make the difference
A smartphone's default camera app handles high-contrast scenes like the Moon against a black sky poorly: it tends to overexpose the Moon in order to brighten the dark background, turning the surface details into a uniform white blob. Switching to manual (or "Pro") mode and deliberately lowering the exposure, while keeping ISO sensitivity low to limit noise, immediately reveals far more surface detail.
It's also advisable to turn off the flash and optical stabilization when using a tripod or adapter, and to trigger the shot with a timer or a Bluetooth remote rather than tapping the screen directly, which almost always causes a slight motion blur at the moment of capture.
What about the planets?
Photographing a planet properly is much more demanding than the Moon. Jupiter and Saturn, shot afocally with a smartphone through a telescope, generally appear as small points of light with, at best, a discernible shape — the highly detailed images of Jupiter's cloud bands or Saturn's rings that you see online are almost always produced with specialized cameras and stacking of hundreds, or even thousands, of individual frames to cancel out noise and atmospheric turbulence.
That said, a modest but genuine result remains within reach: with a telescope of 130 mm or more, a well-aligned smartphone shooting afocally can capture Jupiter's four Galilean moons as distinct points around the planet, or a slightly elongated shape hinting at Saturn's rings — see our guide on gear for observing Saturn for the optical prerequisites.
Going further: a dedicated camera
For better results on planets, the next step is to replace the smartphone with a small dedicated planetary camera, which attaches directly in place of an eyepiece and films a short high-frame-rate video. Free stacking software (such as AutoStakkert, widely used by the amateur community) then automatically selects the best frames from the video — those taken during moments of minimal atmospheric turbulence — and combines them to produce a final image far sharper and more detailed than a single photo.
This approach remains accessible: an entry-level planetary camera often costs less than a good eyepiece, and the software processing, while technical at first glance, follows a fairly straightforward process once explained.
Examples of suitable gear
These products cover the two approaches described above: simple afocal photography with a smartphone, and the next step with a dedicated camera.
Holds the phone aligned with the eyepiece, to photograph the Moon and planets through the telescope.
- Keeps the phone perfectly aligned with the eyepiece
- Compatible with most recent smartphones
- Initial setup can be fiddly depending on the phone model
Plugs in via USB in place of the eyepiece, to photograph Jupiter and Saturn in detail using video stacking.
- Noticeably more capable than a smartphone on Jupiter and Saturn
- Opens the door to video stacking
- Requires a computer and processing software (e.g. AutoStakkert)
Frequently asked questions
Can you photograph the Moon without a telescope or binoculars?
A smartphone alone, even with a good optical zoom, will only show a small disc with no usable surface detail. Some minimum optical magnification — binoculars or a telescope — remains necessary for a satisfying result.
Do you need a specific telescope for photography?
No: any telescope suited to visual observation, like those presented in our guide to choosing a first telescope, works perfectly well for getting started with afocal photography.
Is stacking really necessary for good results on the planets?
For a result close to the images you usually see online, yes, almost always. A single photo, even with good equipment, remains very sensitive to the atmospheric turbulence of the moment.