How well does the iPhone 18 Pro perform when photographing the night sky using Apple's native Night Mode?
During a recent trip to Utah, I tested the iPhone 18 Pro's astrophotography capabilities under dark skies, capturing the Milky Way, Andromeda Galaxy, and several nighttime landscape scenes.
All of the photographs were captured using the native Camera app, with the iPhone mounted on a tripod and Night Mode set to its maximum 30-second capture duration. I also used Apple ProRAW, which incorporates computational image processing even though the resulting files haven't been manually edited.
In the video below, I examine seven unedited ProRAW photographs in Lightroom, comparing image quality from the main, telephoto, and ultra-wide cameras.
Main Camera Night Mode Performance
The main camera produced surprisingly impressive astrophotography results, especially considering the relatively small sensor. The iPhone was able to capture a considerable amount of detail in the Milky Way, including recognizable star clouds, dust lanes, and nebulae.
At normal viewing sizes, many of these photographs look quite good. However, examining the files at 100% reveals some limitations. One issue I noticed was blue color fringing around brighter stars. There were also some subtle color artifacts and considerable noise reduction, particularly in the darker areas of the photographs. Foreground detail was especially affected in scenes illuminated almost entirely by starlight. While larger shapes and outlines remained recognizable, much of the fine detail was lost to aggressive noise reduction.
Despite these limitations, the main camera delivered some impressive results for smartphone astrophotography.
Telephoto Camera Astrophotography
The telephoto camera performed considerably worse than the main camera.
I photographed both the Milky Way core and the Andromeda Galaxy using the telephoto lens, but neither image held up particularly well under close examination. Fine detail was largely absent, and the images exhibited substantial softness and smudging.
While it's interesting that a smartphone can capture distant celestial objects using its telephoto camera, the image quality leaves a lot to be desired.
Ultra-Wide Camera Night Mode Performance
Unfortunately, the ultra-wide camera was also disappointing.
Despite its wider field of view being useful for nighttime landscape compositions, the resulting Milky Way photograph suffered from significant softness, aggressive noise reduction, and very little fine detail.
The ultra-wide camera's smaller sensor and narrower maximum aperture put it at a disadvantage compared with the main camera. Apple's computational processing may also contribute to the poor results.
Based on my testing, I wouldn't recommend using the ultra-wide camera for astrophotography with 30-second Night Mode.
Is the iPhone 18 Pro Good for Astrophotography?
Overall, I'm impressed with what the iPhone 18 Pro can accomplish when photographing the night sky, provided you're using the main camera.
There are clear limitations, particularly when examining fine detail or attempting to recover information from extremely dark foreground areas. However, the ability to capture recognizable Milky Way structure and distant celestial objects using a smartphone is impressive.
The telephoto and ultra-wide cameras are considerably less capable under these conditions, so I'd recommend sticking with the main camera for astrophotography.
Of course, the iPhone 18 Pro isn't going to replace a dedicated full-frame mirrorless camera for serious astrophotography. But for a device that fits in your pocket, the main camera can produce some surprisingly good results under dark skies.
If you want to see exactly how the images hold up, watch the video above for a detailed look at the unedited ProRAW files in Lightroom.
