This picture of Saturn was taken with a Samsung Galaxy S10

The sky above us hides so much beauty we can’t see with the naked eye. But even a consumer telescope reveals a whole new perspective. Josh Rabener recently got one, and he managed to capture Saturn and its recognizable rings. What’s particularly interesting is that he did it with his smartphone.

Josh got a telescope three months ago and started observing the skies. On 23 April, he captured this photo of Saturn:

Josh tells DIYP that the sky in his area is Class 6 on the Bortle scale. In other words, that’s fairly bright suburban skies. He took the photo about 15 minutes before sunrise, which is why the sky appears blue. It makes the image even more interesting, because at the first sight it looks like a huge blue planet with Saturn in front of it. But when you look closer, you realize that the blue part is the sky, and the black circle frame is from the telescope.

The telescope Josh uses is Zhumell Z8 8″ Dobsonian, with a 9mm Plössl eyepiece that came with it. As for the camera, it’s a Samsung Galaxy S10 with standard camera settings. It took him a few attempts to line up the phone camera and the eye piece, and that’s pretty much it!

“I wanted a picture that provides a realistic view than what is shown in books and magazines,” Josh tells DIYP. “I want to captivate the pure beauty of looking in a telescope eyepiece.” As far as I’m concerned, this is exactly what he achieved. I can only imagine the excitement of seeing other planets through a telescope, and I think Josh managed to capture it in his image. I’m sure he’ll observe and capture plenty more epic photos in the weeks to come.

You can find Josh on Reddit, and follow him on Twitter and Facebook.

[via Reddit]