For more advice, read our guides to the best smartphone astrophotography gadgets and how to photograph the night sky with your smartphone. A downside of the Sky-Watcher SkyMax-180 PRO is that it doesn't come with a mount, tripod, or plenty of eyepieces, despite the hefty price tag. With any instrument, the more you accessorize, the better the views get provided the astrophotographer is respectful of the optical tube assembly's highest useful magnification. How about a telescope with an integrated eyepiece adaptor for smartphones? That’s what you get with this simple 3-inch/80mm refractor on an Alt-Az mount. It’s enough to start taking photos of the Moon. A further accessory is available to attach a DSLR camera. Vaonis Stellina Smart Telescope Vaonis Stellina Smart Telescope The latest version of one of the most famous and well-loved manual phone camera apps, Camera 2 allows you to set shutter speed, ISO and white balance, and there’s a slow shutter mode for exposures of up to 30 seconds. It also lets you capture in raw formats for post-processing. You then open up the app, connect, and follow alignment instructions. Then you can use the app to explore a range of targets or manually slew the telescope to wherever you want.

This is the universal clip-on removable 8X-12X Zoom Telescope Camera Lens with Manual Focus Telephoto lens ideal for iOS and Android smartphones and tablets. The new version is professional and high clarity and made of high-class glass, it can be used as a monocular directly. Furthermore, this 360 degrees no dark corner can capture more clear picture for you while watching games, concerts, football, basketball, tourism and more. Moreover, it also has ultra light and removable with easy clip, please adjust the focus slowly until getting clear pictures. Simple and easy to use, the max field of vision distance is 260 meter. 7. 18x Optical Zoom Telescope Camera Lens with Tripod for iPhone 5/5s

Panoramas

This smart reflector telescope features a large aperture that is able to capture a lot of light that different objects transmit. Thanks to that feature you will be able to get the most beautiful view of different celestial objects such as the Moon, and distant star clusters and galaxies. If your needs are slightly more advanced, you should consider whether you're a deep-sky or Solar System imager. The aperture (or objective lens) of the telescope will be your guide on whether it's capable of capturing 'faint fuzzies' or just enough to make the planets and lunar surface pop.

The adapter fits smartphones from 4.7 x 2.4 inches up to 8.3 x 4.7 inches, and its clamp is designed to fit eyepiece housings measuring between 1.2 - 2.2 inches. Unlike some of the best telescopes for astrophotography, smart telescopes are easy for beginners to use. They also use cutting-edge astrophotography techniques, to locate faint objects in the night sky and then take long exposure images of them, merging one on top of the other to remove noise, battle the problem of light pollution and improve the image quality.Another renowned brand in the world of telescopes and telescope accessories, Orion has also entered the smartphone telescope adapter market with the Orion SteadyPix EZ. Equatorial mount: These are like regular pan and tilt tripods, but with the pan axis tilted to match the tilt of the earth. This means that you can follow stars and planets across the sky by moving your telescope on a single axis, motorized or otherwise. Read our full Sky-Watcher SkyMax-127 with AZ-GTi Wi-Fi mount review. Vaonis Vespera Observation Station Some telescope kits even come with their own smartphone adapter, so if you're entirely new to astronomy and think you might want to capture what you see, these are a good option. A lot of telescopes on the market provide an inverted view of the object you are observing. That can be very confusing for those who are just starting to observe the night sky. That is why this smart refractor telescope features an erect view of the object you are observing.

We were able to capture a range of targets including the Moon and deep-sky objects using the NightCap app, and we were very impressed. Sky-Watcher Startravel 120 EQ3-2: Taking a more traditional approach this manual telescope is adaptable both for manual star hopping around the night sky and also for astrophotography, provided you utilize some optional accessories. ★★★½Once widely available, smartphone zoom lenses are on the wane now that flagship smartphones now have decent digital zooms.