Pretty happy with this handheld shot on my iPhone of the Milky Way just by the tail of Scorpius. 🇼🇸

Stellarium screenshot.

@Miraz Beautiful shot!

@Miraz Fantastic photo. I've been really amazed by the iPhone's night sky photography! It's really come a long way.

@Miraz What a nice capture!!! The skies must be quite dark there on the island, right?

@Miraz What a fantastic photo!

@Miraz I've spent the past 30 minutes looking at the Sky Safari app trying to sort out what I'm seeing in your image. 😂🤓 I'm so disoriented!!

@Miraz I'm ashamed to admit that I have never seen the Milky Way with my eyes. Hints of it yes but never in its full glory so really awesome that you got to.

@Miraz Fabulous shot!

@Portufraise I was pleasantly surprised it came out so well.

@Denny I thought it'd be a fuzzy mess so was very surprised.

@Parag They are. We have a good view of the south horizon, but the other directions are obscured by vegetation and mountains.

@heyloura It came out much better than I expected. 😀

@khurtwilliams We're blessed with clear dark skies at home in Waikawa Beach too but it's all a bit different this close to the equator.

@stupendousman 😀

@pratik The iPhone shows more than we see with the unaided eye. I'm sad for you that you haven't yet seen the Milky Way. Apparently we get a better view of it in the southern hemisphere. Time for you to visit this part of the world. 😀

@Miraz Definitely have NZ on our to-visit list but want to get our US passport first otherwise plenty of visa hassles for something so far.

@Denny Try using stellarium-web.org . Set your location to Apia, Samoa (close enough). Turn on the constellation view and look for Scorpius.

@pratik Smart move. Also think about visiting one or more Pacific Islands — flights mostly go from Auckland (rather than from other places).

@pratik No need for shame, BTW. Do make the effort though to look at the stars from a dark place — perhaps next time you travel if you can find a dark sky.

@Miraz Ah, thanks! The resolution in Sky Safari leaves much to be desired! Stellarium provides much more detail in terms of the structures of the cloudy star fields, nebula, etc. That did the trick!

@pratik you don’t have to go that far (NZ). Plenty of clear sky to see the Milky Way in the USA and you might not need more than a drivers license to visit.

@Denny Yay

@Miraz Wow, nice shot! 🤩

@moonmehta 😀

@Miraz @pratik I also have never seen the Milky Way with the naked eye and I'm desperate to go to a dark sky area and get a look. Unfortunately, my eyesight is really poor without special contacts that have a lot of glare and scatter at night.

@Miraz Gorgeous... it's been too long since I've been anywhere that the sky isn't drowned in light pollution.

@jsonbecker Glare and light scatter at night are the worst. If you can get to a dark sky area though when the Moon’s not bright things might be ok.

@ptrck I had hoped to catch a glimpse of Ursa Major but the northern horizon here is blocked by vegetation and mountains.