Astrophotography enhancement device
A passive add-on for smartphones designed to reduce stray light and noise in night sky photos by filtering lateral light—optimized for long-exposure mobile astrophotography.
This project explores a simple idea: when capturing stars with a smartphone, a large portion of the perceived “noise” is not only sensor-related—sometimes it comes from unwanted lateral light entering the optics and creating subtle haze, flare, or contrast loss.
With modern phones enabling exposures of up to 4 minutes, I started prototyping a passive device that tests different internal morphologies to block and absorb side light. The goal is to ensure the light reaching the lens is as direct and clean as possible.
“The intent is not to add complexity—just to reduce everything that shouldn’t reach the sensor.”
Internally, the device is painted with one of the darkest commercially available black paints, chosen for its high absorption properties. This helps to minimize reflections and internal scattering, so that any light entering the device is either absorbed or directed rather than bouncing around.
The device was adapted and tested with Pixel 4 Pro and Pixel 6 Pro. Field tests have already been performed, but the project is currently in an “in-waiting” stage: the next step is a more rigorous validation using pixel-level comparison to quantify improvements in contrast, noise perception, and star definition across controlled conditions.
Until that detailed analysis is completed, the project remains on hold, with the prototype ready for structured evaluation and iteration.
Prototype photos
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