How to take better night photos with the Pixel 6 Pro, iPhone 13 Pro, or digital camera

I thought that taking a photo of the night sky meant mounting expensive cameras onto heavy telescopes and having knowledge of the stars. For the latest episode of Full Frame, I flew away from the big city lights of NYC to meet Bettymaya Foott, an astronomer and director of engagement for the International Dark-Sky Association, who taught me how to take amazing photos of the stars using cameras. What once seemed like a monumental task, involving deep knowledge of the universe, quickly turned into an incredibly peaceful and cold night under the stars.

I learned a lot about taking a great photo of the night sky.

Dark Place, Clear Skies

On a clear night, you need to find a dark place. The ideal location is far away from cities and towns. The International Dark Sky Places program can be used for some ideas. It is important that you have access to your location at night. You have to book a campsite in order to get to the park after dark. If you want to stay away from cliff or prickly plants at night, you need to scout your location during the day so that you can clearly see them. The less clouds, the better!

It is important to know when the moon will rise and set. The brighter the moon is, the less stars you will be able to see. A full moon can make for less visible stars, but it can create a really unique photo by making your foreground brighter. If you want to capture a dynamic moon-set timelapse, you should check when the moon will rise and set. The first and last frames of a timelapse I took while the moon was setting can be seen in the video above.

Gear and Settings

A tripod is the most important piece of gear. The shutter will be open for an extended period of time if you use a phone and you need to be on the ground to avoid blurry photos. Attaching your camera to the tripod requires proper mounts.

The night modes on newer phones like the iPhone 13 Pro or the Pixel 6 Pro can give you good shots of the night sky without having to change settings. The shutter of the camera stays open for extended periods of time, which allows more light to be collected on the sensor. I was very impressed with the photos from the Pixel 6 Pro that have a shutter open for four minutes and have a photo of the stars that it takes.

A wider lens will allow you to keep the shutter open longer without seeing the stars. The 500 rule can help you figure out how long you can set the shutter with your lens. If you can, set your camera to shoot in RAW so that you have the most detail and dynamic range for editing later on. Then, put the camera into manual mode, and adjust the settings for the perfect exposure for your scene.

• White balance: Daylight (5600K)
• Shutter speed: 10 seconds
• Aperture: f/2.2
• ISO: 3200

Focus your lens is the final step in the field. Setting your camera's lens to manual focus will help you begin. Bring up the live view on your camera and zoom in to the center of your screen at least 10x. If you can find a star and bring it in and out of focus, you can make a dot of light. Take a photo and look at your focus. You are ready to take a picture of the sky once everything is in focus.

Editing

Airglow is a faint detail of the night sky that can be brought out by editing your Astro photos. Airglow is made up of particles in Earth's atmosphere that release energy into the sky. The orange and green bands spread across the lower third of the photo.

Foott suggests editing your photo to make you feel the same way you did when you were there. She uses a mixture of software to create vivid portraits of the night sky. You can see more of her work on social media. I lightened my highlights and shadows to bring up the contrast, then I added some clarity and saturation to my photos, because I don't like editing photos very much.

The video above shows more of the photos I took while learning how to capture the night sky.