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BVAC Newsletter
smart phone mounted on a telescope

Smartphone Noise Issues

By Tom Campbell

Last week, I found a Celestron 60 SLT on CraigsList for $50. I don't really need another cheap 60mm refractor, but the SLT has a decent GoTo system. I thought it would be fun to attach my 80mm f/4 refractor to it and use its tracking to allow me to do a bit of simple DSL astrophotography.

When you connect a smartphone to a telescope, you get a lot of noise and artifacts. When you connect one to an achromatic refractor, you get the added difficulty of dealing with chromatic aberration.

I'm learning new processing techniques to try to minimize these effects from my images. I still have a long ways to go, but at least I'm getting something that's recognizable.

Hopefully, I'll be able to get better images soon, but I wanted to share with everyone what can be accomplished with very modest equipment.

Campbell and smart phone mounted on a telescope

Tom Campbell - ready for a night of observing and imaging

mobile phone mounted on a telescope

Close-up of smartphone mounted on Celestron telescope

first attempt of photographing Orion

A raw, single 30-second exposure of M42 (the Orion Nebula) taken with this setup

post processing photo of Orion

Cleaned-up image after trial and error at post-processing