Wesley's Tool-Box

If you look towards the south around 9 to 10 PM in summer, Milky Way can be seen flowing down to the horizon... if you're lucky enough to be in a place with a dark sky. As someone living in a city, I have to rely on a camera's long exposure to catch a glimpse of it, like what I've done 9 years ago. Still, I wondered if iPhone's Night Mode can replicate this magic even after a decade of urbanization that took place here. As it turns out, the answer is a resounding "yes". A bit of post processing needed to be done to bring out the details, but the same can be said for the earlier photo as well.

All I had to do for the capture is to wait for a clear night sky, move to the edge of the city with fewer lights, set the phone on a tripod, and do a 30-second Night Mode exposure. Fortunately, the Liberation Day weekend provided the right atmospheric conditions, and the southern part of the city is still just full of rice fields after all these years. I was worried a bit about iPhone's finicky focus under low light, but it didn't cause a trouble this time.

In the end, I was able to take more than twenty consecutive photos of the Milky Way. Due to the ambient glow in the sky, the original photos still came out looking a bit washed out. But adjusting some settings like contrast and black point in Pixelmator Pro fixed that issue. If you want to see all the photos I took this day, take a look at this video.

Device: iPhone 16 Pro
Settings: 24mm equiv. - ISO 1250 - 30s - f/1.78
Time: 2025-08-15 22:08 KST
Location: Naju, Korea
Processed with Pixelmator Pro 3.7

What if you don't have a tripod handy? Well, you can do the Night Mode photography with bare hands and still capture the Milky Way, as you can see here. As a matter of fact, my first attempts were done this way. When I realized that a reasonably good quality can be had despite the relatively short (10 seconds) exposure and high ISO, I brought out the tripod later on. It's amazing what smartphones can do these days.

Device: iPhone 16 Pro
Settings: 24mm equiv. - ISO 2000 - 10s - f/1.78
Time: 2025-08-15 20:56 KST
Location: Naju, Korea
Processed with Pixelmator Pro 3.7

Nearly two months ago, I realized that the southern window at home provides a view of the Milky Way with long-exposure photography. Although the result from that time was satisfactory, I felt that a stacked approach would be even better. And now, you see the result of stacking eight photos. It's indeed much smoother even at a larger size.

By not using a star tracker, though, the stars were subject to lens distortion at the edges. This is where the flaws of the bundled lens of the A5000 become quite apparent. But I decided to leave it like this since it draws your attention to the center.

Device: Sony A5000 + SELP1650 (E PZ 16–50 mm F3.5–5.6 OSS)
Settings: 16mm - ISO 1000 - 20s - f/3.5
Filters: None
Time: 2016-08-29 21:48-22:05 KST
Location: Naju, Korea
8 photos stacked using Pixelmator

A few hours after walking in the rain to see a movie yesterday, I was getting ready to sleep. Then I noticed that the sky was crystal clear, something I haven't seen in more than nearly two weeks (or three, in the night). Not to pass up this opportunity, I got my camera out. With so many stars visible, I wondered if the Milky Way Galaxy could be captured even with all the lights from the apartment buildings nearby.

After a few tries, it became clear that indeed it could be done, if somewhat faintly. Adjusting the levels, curves, and contrast brought out further details. Individual colour channels were untouched, yet the sky showed a very nice gradient. This may be an unintended affect of the light pollution near the horizon and I like how it turned out.

Device: Sony A5000 + SELP1650 (E PZ 16–50 mm F3.5–5.6 OSS)
Settings: 16mm - ISO 2000 - 20s - f/3.5
Filters: None
Time: 2016-07-08 00:44 KST
Location: Naju, Korea