What is night sky photography called?
Photographing stars, the Milky Way and other celestial objects is usually called astrophotography. Wide-angle images of the night sky with a landscape in the foreground are often called nightscape or “astro-landscape” photography. This guide focuses on that style, because it needs only a camera, a lens and a tripod.
Gear you need
- A camera with manual controls. Most DSLR and mirrorless cameras work, and some recent phones have night modes that can capture bright stars. A camera that shoots RAW files gives you far more room when editing.
- A wide, fast lens. A short focal length and a wide maximum aperture let you gather more light without the stars smearing. See our guide to the best lens for star photography for details.
- A sturdy tripod. Exposures last many seconds, so any movement shows up as blur.
- Extras that help: a remote shutter or the camera’s self-timer, a red-light headlamp, spare batteries (cold drains them quickly) and a lens cloth or dew heater if moisture is a problem.
Plan the shoot
Planning matters as much as settings.
- Pick a dark site (see planning a dark-sky camping night). Light pollution washes out faint stars and the Milky Way. A light pollution map can help you find darker areas near you.
- Check the Moon. A bright Moon lights up the sky and hides faint detail. Around new Moon is generally best for the Milky Way, as explained in the stargazing for beginners guide.
- Know where the Milky Way is. From the Northern Hemisphere, the bright core is visible mainly in the warmer months and sits low in the southern sky. A planetarium or sky-chart app shows when and where it appears from your location.
- Check the weather. Clear, steady skies matter more than almost anything else.
- Scout in daylight if you can, so you know your foreground and composition before dark.
Starting camera settings
These are starting points, not fixed rules. Adjust them to your lens, your sky and your results.
- Mode: Manual.
- Aperture: As wide as your lens allows, for example f/1.8 to f/2.8.
- ISO: Often somewhere around 1600 to 6400 as a first try. Raise it if the image is too dark and lower it if the sky looks too bright or noisy.
- Shutter speed: Usually 10 to 25 seconds with a wide lens (see below).
- Focus: Manual (see below).
- White balance: Try a fixed value, or leave it on auto if you shoot RAW, since you can change it later.
- File format: RAW.
- Noise reduction: Long-exposure noise reduction roughly doubles the time of every shot. Many people turn it off and handle noise in editing or stacking.
Shutter speed and star trailing
Earth rotates, so stars slowly move across the frame. If the shutter stays open too long, stars become short streaks rather than points.
A common shortcut is the “500 rule”: divide 500 by your lens’s focal length (adjusted for crop factor) to get a rough maximum exposure in seconds. For example, a 20 mm lens on a full-frame camera gives about 25 seconds. The rule is simple, but it dates from lower-resolution cameras, and on modern high-resolution sensors stars can look slightly elongated. Many photographers use a shorter time, such as a 300 or 400 rule, or more detailed methods like the NPF rule, which also takes aperture and pixel size into account. Test a few exposures and zoom in to check the stars.
If you want streaks on purpose, see our star trail photography guide.
How to focus on stars
Autofocus rarely works in the dark. A reliable approach is:
- Switch the lens to manual focus.
- Turn on live view and zoom in on a bright star or a distant light.
- Turn the focus ring slowly until the star is as small and sharp as possible.
- Take a test shot, zoom into the image to check, then adjust.
Do not trust the infinity mark on the lens, since it is often not exactly at infinity. Once you are focused, avoid touching the ring. Some photographers use tape to hold it in place.
Composition
A foreground gives the picture scale and a sense of place: a tree, a rock formation, a building or a person with a headlamp. Place the horizon low if the sky is the subject. Try to include something interesting rather than just stars, because a star field alone can look flat.
Stacking and noise
Photo stacking means taking several images of the same scene and combining them with software. Stacking multiple sky exposures averages out random noise, which can give a cleaner, more detailed image. Stacking is also how star trails are made, although that uses a different blending method. For a wide-angle shot, a common workflow is to take many frames, align the stars, stack the sky, and blend the result with a single, sharper foreground exposure. Because the sky moves between frames, you need software that can align stars, such as dedicated astro-stacking programs.
A star tracker, a motorized mount that follows the sky (see telescope astrophotography for beginners for the next step), allows much longer exposures without star trailing. It adds cost and a learning curve, and the foreground may blur.
Basic editing
Edit from the RAW file. Common steps include adjusting white balance, raising shadows and contrast gently, adding some clarity or dehaze, reducing noise and correcting lens vignetting. Over-processing is easy at night, so make small changes and compare.
Troubleshooting
- Stars look like lines: Shorten the shutter speed or use a wider lens.
- Stars look blurry or fuzzy: Refocus using live view, and check for dew on the lens.
- Image too noisy: Lower the ISO if you can, stack multiple frames, and shoot in cooler conditions.
- Image too dark: Raise the ISO, open the aperture, or lengthen the exposure slightly.
- Corners look distorted: Many fast lenses show stretched stars at the edges. Stopping down a little may help.
Taking it further
Once you are comfortable with wide-field shots, you can try star trails, add a longer lens, or photograph the Moon and planets through a telescope (astrophotography with a telescope). Our article on taking a photo through a telescope with a phone is an easy way to start with a telescope you may already own.