If you have any recent Samsung Galaxy phone, back to the Galaxy S22 series, your phone has the capability to take amazing long-exposure astrophotography photos (and actually, your Galaxy camera can do a lot more than just take photos). However, out of the box, your phone doesn’t have this astrophotography feature until you take the steps to set up this extra feature, which is easy to do. Samsung is notorious for leaving certain features disabled by default, like the hidden connectivity labs menu.
How to access Samsung’s astronomy mode
You just need a separate free app from the Galaxy store
To enable astrophotography, follow these steps:
- Download the Expert RAW app from the Galaxy Store (it’s free)
- Open Expert RAW
- Tap the Settings icon, open Expert RAW Labs
- Enable Astrophoto
- Go back to the Expert RAW app, click the constellation icon.
- Choose short, medium, or long exposure, which will take a 3-minute, 6-minute, or 8-minute shot. Pick the longest duration exposure you can for optimal results.
You’ll also need a tripod and a clear, dark sky
Software isn’t everything
Because this camera mode takes long-duration photos, from three to eight minutes, you’ll need a tripod, even a simple one, to keep the photo steady during the shot.
In addition, you’ll obviously need a clear sky with minimal light pollution. Astrophotography does a surprisingly good job with not-perfectly dark skies, as I was able to capture some pretty great night-sky images 20 minutes outside a major city with tremendous light pollution. But the best shots will come from shots taken away from sources of light pollution, where the sky is as clear and dark as possible.
In a pinch, you might be able to place your phone screen-side-down on a table (but be careful not to scratch your screen) and press the capture button, then quickly set the phone down. This movement might make the first few frames of the photo blurry, but it’s “better than nothing” if you want to take a photo of the stars and you have no tripod.
You need to have a Galaxy S21 ultra, or any Galaxy phone newer than S22 for this to work. It’s also supported on Galaxy Z Fold2 and newer.
Which length of exposure should you pick?
It depends
This app needs really long exposure times. The longer the shutter stays open, the more light is let in. If you’re in a situation where the sky is black and the stars are bright, you can choose the short or medium exposure. However, if you’re like me and live in a place with a lot of light pollution and the stars aren’t particularly bright, choosing a long exposure time will increase your chances of success. It’s important that your phone remains completely untouched throughout the shot to avoid camera movement.
Another consideration with exposure time is which phone you are using, because newer phones have a lower f-stop value and thus a wider aperture (since megapixels aren’t the most important factor in determining photo quality), which allows more light into the camera. That means that the Galaxy S25 series, with its f/1.70 lens, will capture more light and require a shorter exposure time in astrophotography mode than the S22 series, which has an aperture of f/1.80.
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Within Expert RAW, you’ll find other benefits, like the ability to capture photos in RAW, which gives you greater editing flexibility in post. Not only do photos have more detail when you shoot in RAW, but you can use advanced editing apps like Lightroom or Photoshop to surgically edit photos to adjust shadows, highlights, exposure, and more, and these edits are all non-destructive and reversible. It’s important to note that RAW photos you take do not appear in the Samsung Gallery app — they’re only available in the Expert RAW app.
It’s important that your phone remains completely untouched throughout the shot so there’s no camera movement.
Even five-year-old Galaxy phones can do astrophotography
It’s great that Samsung offers some of the best Galaxy camera features, down to some of the S21 devices, which are now five years old. Taking full advantage of the astrophotography features requires the Expert RAW camera app, which is a simple free download. Also, remember that this feature is intended to work with a tripod, even a basic one, because your phone must be kept perfectly still for 3–8 minutes. I’ve tried taking photos without a tripod by holding the phone in my hand, but it’s impossible to keep still, and the results aren’t great (they come out very blurry). But ultimately, you want to use this feature with a tripod for best results, and the results — even on older Galaxy phones — are surprisingly good.
