Wesley's Tool-Box

Last attempt to photograph Saturn with my iPhone was far from optimal. But the conditions were much better this time and I hoped to get a clearer picture. I had the Snapzoom adapter hold the iPhone 6 Plus on the Celestron telescope and started recording the visuals of Saturn.


Initially, I used the video mode on the default camera app as I've done with Jupiter a few days ago, but I decided to try the burst mode photos as well. I took 400 photos in the span on 40 seconds. The above is the result - it seemed to produce a better result because of the higher data rate. So I used this to produce a composite photo.

After doing the stacking and post-processing, I was able to get the most detailed look of Saturn yet. The Cassini Division came out sharper and the lighter band at the middle of the surface became visible, besting the results from SX50 HS. A more stable atmosphere and a higher quality eyepiece may help even further in the future.

Telescope: Celestron NexStar 6SE + 5mm eyepiece
Device: iPhone 6 Plus (afocal)
Settings: 29mm - ISO 640 - 1/15s - f/2.2
Filters: None
Time: 2015-05-02 03:44-45 KST
Location: Naju, Korea
46 photos stacked with RegiStax 6.1.0.8

Lots of planetary photos from amateur astronomers seem to be derived from a small video camera attached to the telescope. I do have lots of smartphones that could serve a similar purpose, so decided to make use of them instead. Holding it steady in front of the eyepiece was a problem, as evidenced by my earlier attempt, so some sort of an adapter was needed.


This is where Snapzoom digiscoping adapter came in. I originally bought this several months ago to photograph stars using binoculars, but it could be made to work with telescopes by attaching an included weight. After lots of paddings here and there, my iPhone 6 Plus was able to fit into the adapter and work with the eyepieces that I owned.

Once my NexStar 6SE telescope was aligned with the stars so that I could track any celestial objects, I slid the phone-adapter-eyepiece assembly into the telescope and began looking at Jupiter and the Moon, the biggest targets.


And this is how Jupiter showed up on the screen. The bands and the Great Red Spot were faintly visible, just as I saw with my naked eyes. The shakiness due to the atmospheric turbulence was also quite apparent. I recorded the sight for two minutes and processed the resulting video through PIPP. Finally, the processed video was stacked and sharpened with RegiStax. The final result, as you saw at the beginning, has a more "natural" feel than the ones from SX50 HS for some reason.

Telescope: Celestron NexStar 6SE + 5mm eyepiece
Device: iPhone 6 Plus (afocal)
Settings: 29mm - 1920x1080 - 30fps - f/2.2
Filters: None
Time: 2015-04-27 21:57-59 KST
Location: Naju, Korea
300 frames stacked with RegiStax 6.1.0.8