Point & Shoot Astro

[Constant (David)]

By way of a question, do you believe it possible for real Astro photography, not campfire Milky Way shots become point and shoot subjects.
Could high res Planetary & DSO ever become point and shoot?
In part I'm asking for those millions of iPhone users who pointed at the recent Blood Moon finding only a reddish smudge.
Can you see a time where an iPhone or equivalent has sufficient resolution and processing power so that "on the fly" it deliver to an average consumer a reasonable Astro image?
Clarification... Point-shoot zero work photography (excluding prime focus)

[xelasnave]

Never in a million years so absolutely not but on the other hand maybe.
Alex

[Startrek (Martin)]

For ground based telescopes the laws of physics and nature will always inhibit our attempt to image Deep Space without the atmosphere playing a major roll
Maybe laser technology in the future ??
Microwave technology ??
Nuclear technology ??
But definitely not glass or mirror optical technology
50 years ago , fibre optic cable was only a theory , now its carrying trillions of bytes across the worlds networks
Who knows !!
Interesting post
Thanks

[Dave882 (David)]

I went to the Sydney Observatory earlier this year. They had the gallery open displaying winners for the David Malin Astrophotography Awards, and a whole category devoted to shots taken with smart phones... a sign of changing times and technology but not gunna get deep sky with the things just yet

[JA]

Originally Posted by Constant

Can you see a time where an iPhone or equivalent has sufficient resolution and processing power so that "on the fly" it deliver to an average consumer a reasonable Astro image?
Clarification... Point-shoot zero work photography (excluding prime focus)

I suppose it depends on what you consider a reasonable result, but there is no substitute for aperture, exposure duration, appropriate focal length to get the detail, sensor size for lower noise and astro-tracking, all somewhat incongruous with a phone size device.

Although having said that, some of those requirements can be met, for example extending exposure duration would be no problem in software although noise may swamp signal somewhat in a small phone size sensor. Astro tracking could also be achieved using the phone's GPS and pixel shift technology as it is on various Pentax DSLRs. Of course a tripod would be required. Also there's still the issue of an appropriate focal length and reasonable aperture for light gathering and that implies greater size/bulk. Perhaps a small/medium sized clip/screw on tele lens could be used.

Like Alex said (Hi Alex) : No, but maybe.

Best
JA

[Constant (David)]

Many thanks, you've reflected my native position. In truth, it's not such a bad thing that it takes huge effort and dedication to follow our passion.
Cheers

[AG Hybrid (Adrian)]

While some reasons has been said - laws of physics and all that inconvenient truths. Never in a million years etc.



But! What if... a million iphones pointed at the same spot at once? I mean not current generation iphone 12-13. Maybe iphone 25 or something and then that data is integrated by Siri or cloud whatever that samsung waifu is called? lol

[TrevorW]

Marvin does

[Paul Haese]

Sensors may change over time but overall you will still need a telescope to focus and resolve the light. A phone has a very small aperture and limited ability to resolve objects. So phones alone will not have the ability to take deep sky and planetary images. You cannot escape the laws of physics.

[AdamJL]

iPhone? Unlikely but not impossible. We’ve come a heck of a long way already and AI/machine learning processing will allow these cameras to “catch up”

But there’s absolutely no reason why 95% of our hobby couldn’t be significantly easier. Everything is an engineering problem. This hobby could be automated to be as simple as using PHD2s “press here, dummy” mantra. Press a few buttons and let the software hardware do EVERYTHING.
There is absolutely no reason why this hobby needs to be as complex as it is besides being a small market and therefore not a lot of resources to solve the problems.

Products like the ASIAIR are showing the way. They are the future of the hobby and versions 5, 6 and beyond will show how unnecessary it is to be complex (unless you’re a tinkerer). Others will compete in that space as well.
And then you’ll have adaptive optics miniaturised for the home user.

[glend (Glen)]

IPhones, believe it or not, are not the solution to everything. Perhaps if you could get an iPhone to run Sharpcap software, and attached it to a tripod, you might get something approaching wide field EAA. But really why bother? Point and shoot, never. Thankfully.

[Alchemy (Clive)]

Why not, 100 years ago no one would have dreamed about what we have now. Improvements, clever programming, someone just has to want to do it.

[Sunfish (Ray)]

A DSLR or mirrorless with motorised filters in the lense or camera body. They do that with doublers in high end lenses. So why not auto filters? The hardware and software for whatever you wanted to do would be built in. Mind you those lenses cost more than 20k.

[Hemi]

I think it will eventually be possible. I’m not sure that means it will be available as that will be demand driven.

Instant iPhone images from converted night vision devices for astronomy are pretty amazing already. Would it eventually be possible to improve, miniaturize and integrate the two in a single iPhone or point and shoot camera…I think so.