I tested a camera lens accessory for stargazing — and it wasn’t great

[phillynews215]

We took some impressive pictures with the OPPO Find X9 Pro’s Hasselblad lens kit, and the rather impressive 230 mm lens offers significant distance, which can be extended up to 40x digital zoom, roughly equivalent to 920 mm. That’s pretty long range, and as a very, very, very amateur astronomer, I wondered whether OPPO’s lens kit would be a gateway to some even more amateur astrophotography. Given the rise of brilliant camera phones, computational photography, and dedicated astrophotography modes, I set out to answer whether smartphones are finally catching up to entry-level telescopes for casual sky-watching.

Before I braced myself for the cold, I did some quick math to set my expectations. “My Newtonian telescope has a 750 mm focal length, just bright enough to make out nebulae and galaxies on a dark night, such as Andromeda, with a 28mm lens (27x magnification).




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