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1-Click Astrophotography Timelapse // Capturing the Milky Way (feat. Google Pixel 4a)
Google has recently released a 1-click astrophotography timelapse feature for its Pixel phones. After waiting weeks for clear skies, I tested this new feature astrophotography timelapse feature with my Google Pixel 4a. The results are impressive, and I even captured the Milky Way!
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- Capturing stars with your phone https://youtu.be/LwnMOsq0Mpk
- Astro Timelapses with your phone https://youtu.be/RgKgM73yBQw
- Astrophotography Series https://loicba.me/astro
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#googlepixel4a #astrophotography #timelapse
📖 CHAPTERS 📖
00:00 - Introduction
00:59 - What happened?
01:14 - Setting up the phone
01:25 - Taking a first test shot
03:12 - First test results!
04:00 - First Example Photos
04:10 - Capturing the Milky Way
04:40 - Milky Way timelapse result
05:08 - Milky Way Example Photos
05:18 - Final thoughts
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Good evening everyone! I've been dying to test out the astrophotography timelapse feature of the Google Pixel 4a since Google has announced it. But for the last few weeks it's been cloudy nights after cloudy nights and finally tonight there's a night without too many clouds. So I'm just gonna wait another half an hour to see if it's a good night or not but if it is we're gonna go out in the middle of the lake and take some pictures and test this feature out. For those of you who are new to this channel I'm Loïc Bellemare-Alford a young photographer and filmmaker on a journey speaking better at this art. IIt's currently 10:30 p.m and I just went inside to get my gear because I think it's gonna be the right night to test out this feature. So now let's go out on the lake and really test it out. I'm super excited about this one! Okay so I started stressing quite a lot while getting here because I could clearly see some clouds coming in so I rushed over with my kayak, jumped outside, took my tripod, took my Google Pixel 4a and started taking pictures right away! So I already saw the results and they're pretty cool! So now let's set everything up so you can see how to take these pictures too. Okay so now the camera is on the tripod we're ready to go and test this out. So if you haven't changed already, go on Night Sight. The next thing you want to go inside of the settings and just check a few things. So first of all we're going to go here and make sure that we have astrophotography on "Auto" you don't want to have it off so just make sure it's on "Auto". Then you can go in your settings here, and then go in "Advanced" and you want to make sure that "Enable time lapse for astrophotography" is enabled. By default it is already enabled for you so it shouldn't be a problem at all but just make sure it's actually okay before getting started. sSo now we're gonna go back and we're ready to try and compose our shot. So I'm just gonna bring it up a little bit more to get more sky inside of the photo. Then I might turn it a little bit more over here. Move it up again. And now that we're ready we're simply going to wait for a second for the camera to realize that astrophotography is on. So now astrophotography is on so now we're ready to click and to take the shot. So now we're gonna wait for the full four minutes to get the final results. If you want to learn more on how to take pictures of the stars using your phone, I have another video that completely talks about that and I also have a few other videos on how to take time lapses using your phone of the stars. So definitely go check those out if you want to learn more advanced techniques but this one is all automated. So we're going to see the results in four minutes. So now we just have to wait. Okay so 15 seconds left. 10 seconds left so we're gonna see the results really really soon. So three, two, one, it's done! So now we come in our shot right here. It's probably still processing a little bit so we're just gonna wait a second for it to finish processing. sSo now we have our photo just like we're used with the astrophotography mode on the google pixel phones. But now if we look right here, we're gonna have a video and if we click on play right here we have our little timelapse. So it's only one second which was a little bit disappointing. I was expecting something a little bit longer but it's because it only takes the pictures that it was taking while it was taking the astrophotography shot to create this timelapse. So I would like if Google let us take something longer and get a longer timelapse. But it's definitely a nice little thing to have when you're taking an astrophotography shot. Okay so now let's try and take a few other shots because we're in the middle of Milky Way season so there's probably a pretty good shot to get. So now let's set it up! Okay so based on PhotoPills, the Milky Way should be right behind here. So I have my cell phone set up right here. So now we're ready to take this shot and see if we can see it or not. Okay so we just got our first preview right here after 15 seconds and it looks like we can see quite well the Milky Way. So I'm really excited to see how it's gonna look like in the final result with the little timelapse. Okay so five seconds left. It just completed. So now let's go and see the result right here. So we have the picture that is processing right now and now if you look at the little timelapse right here. Okay so this is pretty cool. So now we have the milky way that is moving around and you can really see it really well in this picture. So this is really cool having a little timelapse of the Milky Way using only your Google Pixel 4a. Okay so before going back home, I wanted to quickly talk about my final thoughts of this timelapse feature for the Google Pixel 4a. So the first thing is that it only works with the most recent Google Pixel phone sso it's a Google Pixel 4 and above. So that's a little bit disadvantage if you do have an older model and it doesn't support it. The second thing that is a bit annoying is that you're really limited to the one second output which I think is just not quite long enough. It would be nice to have something a little bit longer but the effect overall is pretty cool. And one thing I discovered is that it works much better if you have a foreground. So I tried taking only the stars and when I did that, the result just wasn't as good because you don't really have a reference of something that's not moving inside of the frame to really show you the stars are moving a lot more. So definitely try getting a foreground when taking these shots to get a better effect overall. If you enjoyed this video, please let me know by hitting the like button below and also consider subscribing for more content on photography and filmmaking. See you next one! Bye, bye!
Video Links
- 🔗 BUY the Google Pixel 4a
- 📸 My Instagram
- Capturing stars with your phone
- Astro Timelapses with your phone
- Astrophotography Series
- Instagram: @loic.bellemare.alford ()
- TikTok
- My online store
- Affiliate link for Epidemic Sound
- https://kit.co/loic.bellemare.alford/youtube-gear
- DJI Pocket 2 Creator Combo
- 128 gb MicroSD card
- Canon 6D Mk
- Google Pixel 4a
- Canon ZOOM LENS EF24-105mm F4L IS II USM
- Canon EF 16-35mm f/2.8 Lens
- Canon EF 70-200mm f/4.0L-IS II USM Lens
- VANGUARD VEO 2 265CB CARBON FIBER TRIPOD
- DJI MAVIC AIR
- http://bit.ly/loicba
What is this video about?
Google just released an astrophotography timelapse feature for Pixel phones, and I finally got a clear night to test it out. After weeks of waiting for decent weather, I packed my Pixel 4a and headed out on the lake to see if this automated feature could actually deliver impressive results.
The setup is straightforward. You open Night Sight mode, dive into settings, and make sure astrophotography is set to "Auto" and that timelapse for astrophotography is enabled. The phone does the rest—you compose your shot, wait about four minutes, and it processes everything for you. No manual exposure time tweaking or complicated settings. That's the appeal here.
The real magic happens when you check your photos. You get a standard astrophotography image, but also a small video showing a one-second timelapse of what happened while the phone was capturing. I'll admit the one-second output felt shorter than I hoped for, but seeing the Milky Way move across the frame in real time is genuinely cool—especially knowing it all came from a smartphone.
I did notice a few things worth mentioning. First, this only works on Pixel 4 and newer, so if you're running an older model you're out of luck. Second, the timelapse effect really shines when you have a foreground element—trees, rocks, a horizon—something that stays still while the stars move. Pure starfield timelapses don't show the motion as effectively. Having that reference point makes the whole thing more striking.
The feature itself feels like a nice bonus rather than a game-changer. It automates what would normally require serious technical knowledge, which is valuable for anyone wanting to capture night sky motion without diving deep into manual settings. It's not the longest timelapse, but for a one-click feature on a phone, it's impressive.