Milky Way over a beach house
Astrophotography

Astrophotography with a GoPro?

The camera’s that are now showing up in cellphones and action cameras such as GoPros have come a long way over the years. You’ve probably seen the TV commercials for the Google Pixel producing some amazing star-filled photos.  In this article I’ll focus on using a GoPro rather than a cellphone to capture astronomical images and time lapse videos.

GoPro HERO 8 BlackI have a GoPro HERO 8 Black and while it does have limitations it can produced some pretty cool astro images.

The HERO 8 Black at this writing is now a couple of years old and the HERO 10 is the latest model offered. If you are in the market for a GoPro I’d recommend the HERO 9 or 10. I have heard that the hot pixel issue discussed later in this article has been addressed or is not near as prominent in those newer models.

The HERO 8 is a waterproof (down to 33ft) action camera with HyperSmooth 2.0 video stabilization. It has a 12 megapixel camera that is capable of shooting 4K video at 60 fps.  Other built-in features include Time lapse, Time warp and Night lapse modes. There are also digital lens options including Narrow, Linear, Wide and Super View allowing the user to select the best view size for the setting.

This first image is a single frame taken from a Night lapse video I shot in early August 2021 while on vacation. While it’s a bit grainy especially if you view the large version, I was able to clean it up in Adobe Lightroom and remove hot pixels. I should point out that the earlier models of the GoPro (6/7/8) do suffer from hot pixels when taking astrophotography images such the one shown below.

Milky Way over a beach house
Core of the Milky Way over a beach house on North Caicos, Turks & Caicos Islands. The constellations Sagittarius, Ophiuchus and Scorpius are visible in the 30 second shot.

The hot pixel issue will become apparent in the night lapse videos below. I have contacted GoPro Support a couple of times regarding this issue. While they offered the suggestions of updating the camera’s firmware to the latest version (which I did), this made no change, to providing me a new camera but alas my camera was past the one year warranty. So any recourse I had was lost at that point. I could buy a new model.

The image below of a nice bright meteor was taken with the exact same settings used as the Milky Way image above but on a different night and much later/earlier in the morning after the Moon had rose. Notice how bright the Moon is and what it does to the sky, washing out almost all the stars.

A bright meteor caught between the Moon and Jupiter in this 30 second exposure using a GoPro HERO 8 Black. Photo taken on North Caicos, Turks & Caicos Islands.

The Night-lapse video below was taken in very dark rural skies (Bortle 2/3) with no Moon to wash out the dim stars. While the hot pixel issue is immediately visible (red and blue pixels) looking past that reveals a ton of detail in the sky. This is an all night time-lapse running from dust to dawn.

This is a very short but spectacular night-lapse showing Comet NEOWISE under the Big Dipper shot with the GoPro. The camera settings used to capture these images and time-lapse videos are listed below. Feel free to try them if you have a GoPro and have never tried shooting the night sky.

Some recommendations I’d suggest in order to shoot all night long you will need to plug the GoPro into an external battery. The small internal batteries provided with the GoPro will not provide enough juice to get you through the night. Be sure to use the GoPro app Quick on your phone in order to change the camera settings and take your exposures. The Bluetooth connected app is user friendly and works well for this purpose. Trying to use the button on the camera itself will result in blurred images so it goes without saying that you’ll need to stabilize the GoPro. You can prop it up on something but I’d recommend a tripod. I use a “GoPro Shorty” mini selfie stick. It has a built in tripod that works well.

GoPro HERO8 Black Astro Settings:
  • Resolution: 4K
  • Lens: Linear
  • Interval: 30s
  • Format: Video (or RAW if shooting photos)
  • Shutter: 25 seconds
  • WB: 3200K
  • ISO Min: 100 ISO Max: 800
  • Sharpness: Low
  • Color: Flat
Equipment: GoPro HERO 8 Black,  GoPro Shorty – mini extension pole + tripod and Anker PowerCore 20100 portable charger.

A couple of notes about the settings listed above. The video format should be selected for the night-lapse mode but you can shoot individual photos too. Be sure to use Raw format for your photos in order to maximize your post processing capability. As I eluded to above with the meteor photo, you can pull out individual images from the video/time lapse mode.

I have listed the ISO for night-lapse mode to range from ISO 100-800. I tried lowering the max ISO to 400 in order to reduce grain and hot pixels but I found this to be ineffective and the lower ISO was not enough to pull out the starlight I was looking for, even in post processing.

I hope this article is helpful in showing you what can be accomplished with very little effort using a GoPro. Are these world class astro images that are going to win awards? Decidedly no, but they are easy and fun to produce, and provide interest and a great excuse for astronomical conversation.

Clear skies,

Scott