Testing out a used Google Pixel 4a 5g for Astrophotography

The Pixel 4a 5G can be purchased used relatively inexpensively now that they have been on the market for a while. It has a 12.2 rear camera along with a 16 megapixel wide angle rear camera. It takes decent low light photos and creates short one second time-lapse videos if you use it with a tripod. Its a handy tool when you don't want to lug around all your camera gear when you are exploring or just out and about. Night sight mode is a pretty cool feature although I wish it would allow you to take longer time-lapses out of the box.

The above photo is one of the stills from a one second time-lapse created with the pixel using the four minute capture on the pixel. Its pretty impressive and will allow many people to start getting into astrophotography at a lower price point especially if they can pick up a used one for a decent price. I am going to have to explore it more to see if I can create longer time-lapses with some kind of work around. It was not an ideal night for astrophotography with clouds in the sky, but it let me see how it performs with objects other than stars in the sky. I am interested to see how it will do with the Milky Way once I get a night without clouds and a new moon.

The above photo had more light pollution behind it so the stars are not as bright, but it still does a decent job for a cell phone. I have some pixel 2xl phones I am installing linux (ubuntu touch) on and will compare android and ubuntu touch photos once I get everything setup. I think astrophotography is more limited on pixel 2xl, but its worth exploring because it might be a good dirt cheap camera only device since device updates are at end of live for pixel 2xl.

What do you think of phone astrophotography?