Just realized my phone camera trick for nebula photos is totally wrong

I spent 3 hours last Thursday trying to capture the Orion Nebula with my phone held up to the eyepiece, only to find out I had the exposure settings backwards (too bright, not too dark). A guy at the park observatory laughed and showed me a $15 adapter that fixes everything. Has anyone else made this dumb mistake?

2 comments

2 Comments

adam_hernandez1mo ago

Wait, three hours with the settings backwards? That's brutal, man. The friendly park guy with the cheap adapter is a solid save though. At least you got a good story out of that accidental brightness experiment.

oliver7191mo ago

Did you at least check if the brightness was actually changing when you adjusted it? I learned the hard way that some park systems have a weird override where the manual settings don't stick until you cycle power. Next time, take a photo with your phone before you start, adjust one setting at a time, and snap another pic right after to compare. That trick saved me from wasting another afternoon tweaking the wrong thing. And yeah, that park guy probably saved you from buying a whole new bracket setup too.