I’m pretty new to both astronomy & astrophotography. I’m mostly into visual astronomy but I want to take iPhone pictures of what I see to send to my grandkids to spur their interest in science. I have a used C8, on an iOptron AZ Pro mount, and I have an iPhone 12 Mini. I'm in Bortle 7 suburban Atlanta. I can use the phone’s night mode (time exposures) to get fuzzy but cool (to a 6-yr-old) photos of nebulae, and I can get fairly good snapshots of the Moon (using a polarizing filter), but I can’t get a good photo of a planet that looks near as sharp as the Moon, even though it looks fairly sharp (but all white) to my eye through the telescope. I’ve seen lots of articles and videos that say you have to take multiple shots, or videos, of planets, and use software to stack and sharpen them, but my question is: why is that? Why is a planet so much harder to photograph than the moon? I've attached a couple of examples. I used a light pollution filter for Saturn (without one it was too bright, so it's not like the camera's not getting enough light).
Edited by shkeller55, 05 August 2022 - 04:18 PM.