We will be discussing the best iPhone apps for astrophotography here.
Whether you’re an amateur astronomer or just someone who enjoys taking pictures at night, it can be tricky to capture great astrophotography shots.
Nevertheless, there are specific things that must be adjusted on your camera. And if you don’t know what they are, the results may not turn out as well as you hope.
Fortunately, if you own an iPhone, some apps can help you with the process. This makes astrophotography much easier than it normally would be.
This article will discuss the best iPhone apps for astrophotography and why they’re so useful. Shall we?
1. The Moon–Phases Calendar App
This comes first on the list of the best iPhone apps for astrophotography.
This is an excellent app for those who want to keep track of the moon’s phases. And also want to know what the moon looks like on any given day.
Nevertheless, you can choose from various calendars, input your birthdate, and even set reminders. So you never forget when the next full moon is coming.
2. The Sky Guide App
This app offers a map of all the stars in the sky. Plus, it’s an excellent resource if you’re interested in astronomy or have just begun to learn about our solar system.
Therefore, it’s easy to use and provides detailed information about each celestial object, including its distance from Earth, magnitude, coordinates, right ascension, and more. This is the second one of the best iPhone apps for astrophotography.
3. Observer Pro App
The Observer Pro app is one of the best iPhone apps for astrophotography I’ve found so far. It has an excellent interface, and it’s easy to use. The app is perfect for taking photos of the night sky.
Although, you’ll need a tripod to ensure your pictures are steady. It does have a paid version, but I’ve found the free version gives me everything I need.
However, the only downside is that this app doesn’t have the same features as other options. But it’s still worth checking out.
4. Redshift
Redshift is an app that lets you take long-exposure night sky photographs. It’s designed to reduce noise, capture more light, and provide better colors than a standard camera app. You can also use it to create timelapse videos of the sky at night.
Moreso, of the best iPhone apps for astrophotography, this app is one of my favorites because it’s easy to use and produces great results.
I love using it with my phone because it makes astrophotography accessible, even if you don’t have a DSLR camera.
5. Scope Nights Weather App
Scope Nights is an app that can help you plan your night sky viewing activities. It’s one of the best iPhone apps for astrophotography or for an avid astronomer.
The app has a database of stars, planets, and galaxies visible from your location (or your specific location).
Moreso, you can zoom in on an object and find out what phase it’s in. Or to find out how to see it best and more. You can even see the path of the International Space Station as it flies overhead!
Moreover, the Weather app for Scope Nights lets you know whether or not there will be clear skies at night.
So you can plan your viewing accordingly. You’ll never have to miss out on seeing a great meteor shower just because there was some pesky cloud cover!
6. SkyView Lite
SkyView Lite is one of the most popular and best iPhone apps for astrophotography that’s been around for a while. It gives you a view of what the sky would look like from your current location.
Therefore, it is useful if you’re planning on going to an area with clear skies and want to know what to expect before you leave.
It has an augmented reality mode, so when you point your phone toward the sky, it can tell you exactly what stars or planets you’re looking at.
Also, it has a clock so that if you’re trying to figure out where constellations are in relation to each other, it can help with that too. All these features make it one of the best iPhone apps for astrophotography.
7. Meteoblue App
The meteoblue app is an excellent option if you want to keep an eye on the weather. The app has a radar and forecasts, which can be useful in astrophotography predicting cloud cover.
You can also set alerts to notify you when the sky is clear. The Night Sky app is also one of the most popular, with more than three million downloads.
It contains much information about stars and galaxies and interactive maps. The interface is easy to use, making this one of the best for beginners.
However, both apps are free and available through iTunes or Google Play store. Equally important to note, they are likewise the best iPhone apps for astrophotography.
8. PhotoPills
In the past, someone would have to buy a star chart, a compass, and a telescope to get started on astrophotography.
But now, thanks to smart devices and apps like PhotoPills, you can use your smartphone for this purpose.
As one of the best iPhone apps for astrophotography, the app has plenty of features that make it worth the price.
Therefore, the first feature is a time-lapse mode which allows you to take an image at set intervals so that you can create a time-lapse video of the night sky.
Moreso the other feature is called Exposure Calculator, which will tell you how long to leave your camera shutter open. This is so to capture light from stars or other celestial objects.
9. SkySafari 6/7 Pro App
The SkySafari 6/7 Pro app is a planetarium and stargazing app. It offers a lot of features to make your astronomy experience better.
It has a database of over 600,000 stars, galaxies, nebulae, and constellations, with information about each.
Also, there are sky tours and audio tours to help you explore the night sky. Plus, it lets you know when planets will be visible in the sky!
This app which is also one of the best iPhone apps for astrophotography is available on the App Store for USD 14.99.
10. Polar Scope Align Pro
To get the most out of your astrophotos, you’ll need to ensure that your mount is properly aligned with Polaris. Polar Scope Align Pro is one of the best iPhone apps for astrophotography.
Therefore, it’s designed to help you do just that by showing you exactly where Polaris is. And making it easy to align your mount with it.
It also has a database of more than 400 stars and deep-sky objects, which can be used for alignment.
However, with this app installed on your phone, you’ll never have trouble finding the North Star again!
11. Sky Live App
This app is great for astrophotographers who want to see what the sky looks like in real time. You can see a map of the night sky, and you can identify stars, planets, constellations, and satellites.
When you find an object that interests you, tap it, and Sky Live will show you more information about it. It will also point out where it is in the night sky.
So that you can find it with your telescope. If you’re away from home but still want to know how bright the Milky Way is at your house, Sky Live is one of the best iPhone apps for astrophotography.
12. ProCam 8
Compared to the other best iPhone apps for astrophotography, this app has been the most helpful. It’s not free, but it does offer a 7-day trial. I find that the exposure timer is a little tricky to set.
Moreover, some of the other features are hard to figure out without reading instructions, but overall it’s a good app. I use this app more than any other when taking photos of night sky objects.
The reason is that ProCam 8 has an exposure slider that can be adjusted depending on what you’re photographing.
If you want an object to be brighter than others, you can shorten its exposure time. And vice versa, lengthen it if you want less light from that object in your photo.
13. NightCap Camera App
NightCap is an iOS app that has been downloaded over 500,000 times. It is a camera app that takes pictures in the dark with minimal noise. And allows you to take long exposure shots than you would normally get on your phone.
Therefore, you can also use NightCap to take multiple long exposure shots and combine them into one image.
NightCap also lets you shoot in RAW format. So if you’re interested in editing your photos later, this is a great option!
Lastly, the only downside to Nightcap is that it’s not free but offers a free trial of 7 days. This gives you plenty of time to see if the app will work for what you need. This app is not excluded from our list of the best iPhone apps for astrophotography.
14. Clear Outside App
Clear Outside is one of the best iPhone apps for astrophotography that lets you see the sky from any location on Earth.
With just a few taps, you can determine what the sky will look like. And plan your next astrophoto shoot.
Also, Clear Outside provides information about stars, planets, and constellations. It includes more than 3,000 of the brightest stars, as well as meteor showers and eclipses.
Clear Outside is a must-have app for anyone who loves capturing the beauty of our world in a photograph.
15. Astrospheric App
Astronomy is a great hobby; you can do it anywhere with your phone. There are many great astronomy apps out there, but here are the favorites I often use, especially when I want to learn more about the stars, planets, or constellations.
The astronomic app is not left out of this list of the best iPhone apps for astrophotography. This app provides a high-quality photo each day of something in space. It has cool features like quizzes and information on what you’re looking at.
16. Dark Sky
If you’re an astrophotographer, you know how difficult it can be to find a dark sky. Several tools can help with this: apps, websites, and even hardware like the Sky Quality Meter.
However, the one thing they all have in common is that they require an internet connection or some cell service.
That’s where Dark Sky comes in. It’s not an app but a website with mobile app versions available for iOS and Android devices.
17. Light Pollution Map
The Light Pollution Map is an interactive map that allows you to see the level of light pollution in your area. You can enter your city, state, or zip code to see what the levels are in your area.
Nevertheless, once you enter the information and click on the plot button, a map will pop up with a gradient from blue (dark) to red (light).
Areas in green are those where there is no light pollution. However, the darker areas are where there is more light pollution.
And it will be harder to see stars with the naked eye. As expected, this is one of the best iPhone apps for astrophotography.
18. Dark Sky Finder
Do you want to shoot the stars but don’t know when and where? Dark Sky Finder is one of the best iPhone apps for astrophotography that will tell you when and where it will be dark.
This is so that you can get the perfect shot. Moreover, if you need to find a constellation or find out what time it is, this app will have your back.
All you have to do is search by date, time, or location. And then Dark Sky Finder will show you the answer in just a few seconds.
19. Photographer’s Ephemeris
The Photographer’s Ephemeris app is a must-have tool for any astrophotographer. It provides accurate data on where the sun, moon, and stars will be in the sky. And this is at any time of day and year, from 1983 AD to 2040 AD.
Also, the app has maps of major cities around the world with light pollution ratings. So that you can find a place that offers dark skies to shoot under.
The app even tells you what direction each celestial body will be in relative to the true north and current location.
Therefore, this is a vital factor when photographing the night sky because most lenses are made to focus on objects within a certain range of the camera.
However, when photographing landscapes, this is not an issue as everything appears sharp.
Because it’s much closer to the lens than the stars in the sky, but when taking pictures of galaxies or constellations or star clusters, they may not appear sharp due to focusing issues.
Lastly, these particular ones of the best iPhone apps for astrophotography are properly focused with an iPhone app such as Focal Camera Pro – HD Retina Lens.
This allows you to control focus and exposure separately via two knobs. It is located next to one another on top of the screen.
20. Stellarium
This is one of my favorite apps because a space nerd and this app let me explore galaxies from my bed! It has useful functionality such as being able to turn on and off nebulae and adjusting the field of view.
Also, zooming in or out, and looking at the sky from any point on Earth, among other things are included.
Nevertheless, the only downside with Stellarium is that it’s really difficult to take screenshots since it’s not an iPhone app but rather a Mac OS X application.
However, you can get an emulator which will allow you to see what your phone would see if you were viewing the stars through it.
You can find more information about Stellarium which ends our list of the best iPhone apps for astrophotography.
Conclusion
If you’ve ever wanted to take beautiful astrophotography photos, there’s an app for that! With your iPhone or iPad, you can snap pictures of the stars at night. And have incredible photos ready to share with your friends the next day.
Nevertheless, well above are the best iPhone apps for astrophotography that will help you get started. In astrophotography, the sky can be your best friend or your worst enemy, depending on the conditions.
Lastly, the article above comprises the best iPhone apps for astrophotography that will make your astrophotography experience that much better. No matter what the sky throws at you!
