What are some astrophotography editing options and strategies for taking photos of galaxies with a telescope and a cell phone?

Question

We purchased a phone adapter for my sons telescope and got some amazing pictures, BUT we believe that they can be clearer.

What is the best, or a really good, image editing program for amateur astrophotography images; especially those taken with a telescope + cell phone combination?

What kinds of functions should we be looking for in this case?

Yes sir. I'm trying to get the galaxy pictures where we can see it clearer. — SSmith3, Jan 06 '22 at 05:32
You can use registax for desktop, in which you can stack frames to obtain best image or video you can then use adobe lightroom for mobile phone or tablet to make final touches, adobenlightroom for smartphone is free and the features you get is enough to process astrophotographs. — Kavin Ishwaran, Jan 06 '22 at 08:57
I’m voting to close this question because it's an image processing "request for recommendations" and not particularly related to astronomy — Carl Witthoft, Jan 06 '22 at 13:20
Carl Witthoft, This has everything to do with astronomy. I'm trying to get clearer images out of the pictures I took of Jupiter and the galaxies. All it looks like in my picture is a fuzzy blur with bright stars around it. — SSmith3, Jan 07 '22 at 02:22
You can't make a blurry photo more clear. You'll have to take the photo again and make sure it's focused well. If it's in focus but too bright then you should increase the shutter speed. Jupiter is very bright and therefore needs a fast shutter speed (1/100 or something like that) to capture details. Check out my answer about photographing Mars with a phone camera for more information. — Aaron F, Jan 14 '22 at 22:57
well if you have the precise kernel with which to deconvolve and the edge of the field is black, there are deconvolution techniques that at least theoretically can deblur an image with some success. Just as an example Do observational astronomers make use of the Fredholm equation? Perhaps in solving for/removing instrumental effects in imaging? — uhoh, Jan 16 '22 at 07:13
Would https://softwarerecs.stackexchange.com be a better location for this request? — GrapefruitIsAwesome, Jan 16 '22 at 14:24
@uhoh you're right! but i didn't want to go into that in a comment because who has that?! XD — Aaron F, Jan 16 '22 at 22:39
Without seeing the images that you are taking, any suggestions will be a "shot in the dark". (pun intended) Can you edit the question and add the "blurry photo of Jupiter" and a representative photo of the galaxy? The problem could be the equipment used to take the photos, not the software used to process them. — JohnHoltz, Jan 21 '22 at 16:51

Kavin Ishwaran · Answer 1 · 2022-01-22T03:21:36.720

For better astrophotography experience, here are some stratergies I usually if I were to shoot with a cell phone cam.

Capturing images

It starts with your smartphone itself, Your smartphone should be able to shoot at least 1080p and should offer manual settings. Make sure that you shoot images at JPEG (Check your compression rate, it should be in minimum, PNG format is always preferable) or PNG format and not in any compressed formats such as HEIC. Use voice control or a earphone to capture pictures so that you don't shake you smartphone

Exposure

Planets or Galaxies, your exposure time should range between 30 seconds to 60 seconds, most smartphones offer this settings, longer the exposure time, more details you see in the image

ISO Settings

Capture images at no more than ISO 400 (ISO simply refers to the sensitivity to the light, since high ISO in low light will produce disastrous noise in the image), different sensors / smartphones offer different ISO range, anything from 25 to 400 will fetch you good images

Stacking

For stacking you may need to take as much as 30 pics (Best results if you shoot as a video, not sure if some smartphones allows you to take videos with advanced settings/manual mode), since more images = more information to the software to fetch you good results in destroying the noise. Registax is my personal choice to stack images.

Final touches

After stacking images, you can use Adobe lightroom for smartphone or Dark Table for PC which gives you the features that are enough to correct colors, contrast, white balance etc.

Jpeg is a lossy format. Png is not. Compression does not hurt (e. g. png is compressed) — planetmaker, Jan 21 '22 at 14:36
@planetmaker Yes PNG files are compressed, I mentioned compressed formats such as HEIC which some softwares may not read it. And JPEG's quality loss depends upon the compression rate, I forgot to mention about it. — Kavin Ishwaran, Jan 21 '22 at 16:10

What are some astrophotography editing options and strategies for taking photos of galaxies with a telescope and a cell phone?

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