I’ve searched high and low and these are the best in my honest opinion. These apps are my absolute favorite tools for finding the Milky Way. The Best Smartphone Apps for finding the Milky Way: Below are my absolute favorite smartphone apps and computer software for finding the Milky Way, as well as techniques for locating it without technology. I’d like to share with you some of my favorite tools and tips for finding the Milky Way’s galactic plane and more specifically, the bright galactic center. With some practice and observation, it’s possible to track the motions of the heavens and use it to help plan your astrophotography excursions.

When you embrace astrophotography as your hobby and you really want to produce the best results possible, the thing on your mind most often is not what lens to use or what camera to buy, it’s the awareness of where we are in the astronomical sense: the position of the Earth and the Moon and the Sun as we slowly dance in the heavens. Here is the region of the sky near the constellation Cassiopeia. As it turns out, the night sky has seasons.įrom about September through April, we cannot see the bright galactic center and are instead limited to observing the dimmer parts of the Milky Way.

Still today, I receive the occasional email from a reader asking for help with finding the Milky Way or from photographers who have set out on their first excursion in the dark only to find that the bright galactic center, the part of the sky we all expect to see when trying to shoot the Milky Way, was not visible at that particular time of year. It moves across the sky throughout the course of the night and the position of the Milky Way will differ depending on the time of year.

One of the most important factors that contributes to the visibility of the Milky Way is the time of observation. I remember my first failed attempts at trying to shoot the Milky Way, and I recall one of the most basic and obvious challenges: I didn’t even know where to point my camera. Using either smartphone apps or by memorizing important constellations, you’ll be able to find the Milky Way with or without the use of technology. In this article, I share some of my favorite tools and tips for finding the Milky Way’s galactic plane and more specifically, the bright galactic center. If you want to photograph the Milky Way, the first thing you’ll need to know is how to find it.

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