Photographing the moon with your smartphone: How to get the perfect shot from 10 euros With a smartphone and some accessories, you can create amazing shots of the moon. TechStage shows what it takes to take a good photo of the moon. 4:00 p.m. tech stage

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Brian Adam
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photographing the moon with your smartphone how to get the.jpeg
photographing the moon with your smartphone how to get the.jpeg

With a smartphone and some accessories you can create amazing pictures of the moon. We reveal what is necessary for a good photo of the moon.

The moon is both a fascinating and rewarding photo motif and provides impressive results even for beginners. The great thing is that neither an outrageously expensive telescope nor a special camera or the like are necessary. If your own smartphone meets certain criteria, you can take great pictures without a lot of equipment. If you also use a telescope from 80 euros, middle-class smartphones (guide) are enough . We’ve been through the night, tried a lot – and show what there is to consider.

The moon is bright, yes. Accordingly, it can actually be photographed in almost any environment. Nevertheless: in cities or in the vicinity of airports and industrial plants, a high proportion of scattered light from city lighting creates unfavorable conditions. One or the other street lamp does not immediately disturb the moon photography, but a place that is as dark as possible is better suited for the nocturnal moon hunt. If in doubt, the dirt road on the outskirts is a good idea.

A helpful tool for finding a location is The Photographers Ephemeris , which not only gives the position of the sun and moon for your own location, but also the angle above the horizon. In case of doubt, anyone who uses the tool can also take a good photo of the moon from the terrace or balcony.

In our experience, the first good pictures succeed when you photograph the moon high in the sky. Then he’s an easy target. On the other hand, if you already have some experience, you should take a look at the moon at sunrise or sunset and take a picture of it with a building or forest in the foreground, for example.

Even a smartphone camera manages to photograph the moon in such a way that large craters and contours become visible. In our experience, you only need a smartphone camera that meets three criteria: First, at least a 10x hybrid zoom – a combination of optical and digital zoom. This provides the necessary sharpness. Secondly, a Pro mode , i.e. a camera mode in which you can set the focus, ISO value, exposure time etc. manually. The digital zoom should also be at least 30x magnification so that you can get the moon close enough.

Hands-free and with a 30x magnification, you can also get the moon in reasonably detail in front of the lens with the Huawei P30 Pro.

So far we have used the smartphones Huawei P30 Pro (test report) , Huawei P40 Pro (test report) , Samsung Galaxy S20 Ultra (test report) as well as Samsung Galaxy S21 Ultra (test report) and Galaxy S22 Ultra (test report) for moon photography . In addition, there are many other smartphones that meet the criteria. Our price comparison shows an overview.

If you take photos with a smartphone or camera, you also need a stable tripod. If you can theoretically take photos with your hand at moonrise because of the high residual light, photos with a tripod are simply sharper – because with longer exposure times it is impossible to hold the mobile phone stable with your hand. We also recommend the timer function of smartphones for the benefit of freedom from blurring. In our experience, the timer should be set to at least 10 seconds. This is usually enough to avoid rough wobbles in the picture. Otherwise, moving your hand away from the display after taking the photo is enough to drastically reduce the quality.

With a bit of image processing, the result is then also presentable.

In order to photograph the moon well, you should set the ISO value to 50 or 100, aperture to f/1.8 and exposure time to 1/1000. The autofocus can also work well in Pro mode – but if in doubt, use manual focus and the furthest possible distance (infinity). With some smartphones, artificial intelligence also helps a little. As soon as the camera detects the moon, it switches to a moon mode for more detailed shots. The result can be seen at 30x zoom for a hands-free snapshot. The picture would be even sharper with a tripod.

For comparison: For professional recordings, you certainly need a digital single-lens reflex camera (DSLR) or a system camera with a sufficient focal length, as our buying guide shows: The best system camera . From an available effective focal length of 300 millimeters, it starts with professionals. The Huawei P30 Pro is about 125 millimeters. But that’s enough for the first experiments.

This photo of the moon was taken with an iPhone XR at the telescope.

If you still want detailed photos of the moon but don’t have an expensive camera, you have to use a telescope. In our experience, a simple smartphone holder and a beginner’s telescope for around 100 euros is enough for the hobby moon photographer. Here, even an iPhone XR or even a massively outdated iPhone 6 (market launch in 2014!) get the moon to some extent sharp – without any Pro mode. However, we recommend smartphones that have at least a double optical zoom. This makes the moon in the dime-sized image about the size of a 2-euro coin.

Appropriate brackets are available for telescopes from as little as 10 euros . This is screwed to the eyepiece of the telescope. Then you put the smartphone in a holder directly in front of the lens. A bit of fiddling is necessary here, but the result is then also pleasing. For example, we have been using the Gosky mount for around 19 euros for over two years.

Photos of the moon with telescope and smartphone

For our test we used a Skywatcher 70/700 refractor telescope (lens telescope). This is usually cheaper to buy than a reflector telescope (mirror telescope). In our experience, an aperture of 70 millimeters is also the minimum requirement for a satisfactory photo of the moon. Less is also possible, but in terms of quality you move very quickly in the direction of simple smartphone photography. As an eyepiece, we use one with a focal length of 25 millimeters without zoom or wide angle. This is sufficient for a view-filling moon and usually such a simple eyepiece is already included in the set with the beginner’s telescope. You can find it on Amazon for 146 euros .

The Bebest XA90 also convinced us. It offers an aperture of 90 millimeters and comes with a 20 millimeter Pössel eyepiece. It looks well made, there is a transport bag and the tripod is significantly more valuable than the Skywatcher. Here you pay with code BGtech05 currently 207 euros at Banggood .

With many refractor telescopes, a tripod is already included in the purchase price. But be careful: If you get a cheap telescope, the tripod is usually of poor quality and therefore shaky. From our own experience, we therefore recommend buying it from a specialist shop or listening to recommendations from the astronomy community. For example, the Facebook group Astronomy for Beginners and Beginners ( link to Facebook ) is very active. Here the community not only helps with the purchase decision, but also how to improve your moon photography skills.

Left to right: The moon with 3x optical zoom and no zoom. Shot with a Huawei Mate 20 Pro.

Finally, of course, the combination of camera and telescope with an appropriate mount also works. But beware: Our Skywatcher would not carry the weight of a camera – the weight is too high for that. The image of the telescope is distorted accordingly. For a cheap start, we therefore recommend moon photography with a beginner telescope and smartphone.

The moon is the easiest way to get started with astrophotography. It is relatively close to Earth and is a fortunate candidate for beginners. Even with a smartphone you can get a picture of the moon. On the other hand, if you suspect a new hobby in astronomy, you should definitely get a telescope. This is usually cheaper than a camera and not only offers a view of the moon, but also of bright nebulae. First closer looks or snapshots of Venus or Saturn are also possible.

On the other hand, if you already have a system camera or SLR at home, you should read the heise online guide to moon photography . Here it is explained in detail how to optimally photograph the moon with such cameras.

The author of this article can also recommend the website Astronomie.info . From a purely visual point of view, it looks like it is from the 1990s, but you can get up-to-date information on the status of the celestial bodies and times when it is worth taking a look at the sky.

If not only the moon is the photo object of desire, we recommend our list of the best: The 10 best camera smartphones . And if you want to print out your photos right away, you will find the best mobile mini photo printers in this article.