CosmicCaptures
Discover the cosmos with me and dive deep into the universe's awe-inspiring beauty. My name is Tim Ciasto, and at Cosmic Captures, I share my experiences and insights, aiming to help you feel the joy of bringing the cosmos closer through astrophotography.
Welcome to Cosmic Captures.
CosmicCaptures
Milky Way panorama — shot on iPhone
Phones aren’t exactly known for their astrophotography skills. Anyone who’s tried to casually capture the night sky with one knows how underwhelming the results can be. So I wanted to see: how far can you actually push it?
This image gave me a proper workout.
One of the foreground shots ended up blurry. The brightness across the sky changed a lot from left to right — partly because of light pollution from a nearby town. And the iPhone kept changing its settings automatically between each frame, which made the sky really uneven and harder to edit.
The biggest challenge? Stitching all the pieces together into one image. The Milky Way stretches across the entire sky — a full 180 degrees from north to south — and trying to flatten that into a single photo is kind of like ironing out a globe. You always end up warping reality a little.
I used PTGui to align the shots (after some trial and error), and a mix of editing tools to even out the sky. So yes — the camera was simple, but the process wasn’t. And I’m still figuring it all out.
That round puddle in the centre? It marks the spot where a millstone was once carved out of the rock. There are dozens of them along this beach — quiet traces of an old industry.
What’s left is a reflection of the past.
This was so satisfying to finish — not because it’s perfect, but because I learned a lot. And that’s what really matters to me.
Swipe through for the final image, some behind-the-scenes, and a closer look at the quirks and fixes.
Ever tried photographing the Milky Way with your phone? Or stitched a big pano together? Let me know what worked — and what didn’t.
8 months ago | [YT] | 46
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