Smartphone photography with a telescope

Mary Mcintyre explains how to get impressive night-sky images using your phone

- Mary Mcintyre

One of the simplest ways to take a photo through a telescope is to use the afocal technique, where a picture is taken while the camera is held up to the eyepiece.

Improvements in mobile phone camera technology and apps that allow manual camera settings mean that it's now possible for phones to capture really good astrophotos at the eyepiece.

The advantage of the afocal technique is that it can be done with any telescope used for visual observing. You don't need to remove the eyepiece to take a photo, so it's very easy to switch between visual observing and imaging. The camera's zoom function also allows you to digitally increase the magnification through the same eyepiece.