iPhone Air Astrophotography and the iPhone Air

[citivolus]

There has been a rapid increase in the quality of taking pictures of the heavens using our iPhones within the past few generations.

Given the specs for the iPhone Air’s cameras, can any experienced astrophotographer comment on how they expect the Air to perform with taking night mode pictures relative to say iPhone 15 or 16 Pro?

 

[MacDevil7334]

It's going to be a downgrade I think. The sensor on the Air is smaller and the lens has a slightly narrower field of view than the 1x on the Pro. That's going to reduce your light gathering ability right there. But the bigger loss is the ability to shoot in ProRaw. Apple's HEIC processing has gotten better at Milky Way images in the last few years (especially at getting reasonably sharp stars), but it still generally smudges out all the detail in the Milky Way core. You really need to start with an image shot in ProRaw (30 sec on a tripod if possible) and then process in something like Lightroom to get the most out of it. And of course, even the quality from the Pro phones still doesn't come close to what you can get from a dedicated camera (though I am continually awed that I can get shots that are usable for sharing on a small screen or for social media from my freaking phone).

Bottom line is the Air will still be able to capture something. But, without ProRaw, you will be completely at the mercy of Apple's HEIC processing as to what you get.