Best astrophotography cameras 2024: Capture the cosmos

The best astrophotography cameras have certain features and specs that make them more suitable for shooting in the dark than other models. As a baseline, they need excellent low-light performance, fantastic noise handling and a good battery life to avoid running out of juice on a cold night. Some models also have astro-specific features like Starlight View, Night Vision Mode and Starry Sky Autofocus — we've tested and highlighted all these features for each camera in this guide.

We asked award-winning landscape astrophotographer Josh Dury about what users should look for when choosing a camera for astrophotography, and he said "You don't always need to invest in a new camera for astrophotography, sometimes a used camera will be just as good. Be aware to look for cosmetic conditions (you want a camera that has been well looked after), and also look out for the actuation (shutter) count of the camera. You want one with good longevity so the lower the number, the better."

Once you've mastered the astrophotography basics, you can then invest in the rest of your kit a bit more — the best astrophotography lenses are typically wide-angle prime lenses that let ample light in, with the best tripods being sturdy and reliable. Experienced astrophotographers also make good use of lens warmers, star trackers and intervalometers. If that's not enough, the best telescopes and best binoculars for stargazing can provide you with an even closer look at the sky above.

With there being a partial lunar eclipse visible throughout most of North America on September 17-18, now is a great time to invest in some of the best astro gear.

The quick list

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The best astrophotography cameras we recommend in 2024: Fully tested by our experts with hands-on, real-world experience

Best astrophotography camera overall

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Known as the 'baby Z9', the Nikon Z8 is the best all-purpose camera that Nikon has ever made. It can handle anything you throw at it, and then some. Astrophotography, wildlife, landscape, video — you name it. To put it simply, we think it's the best mirrorless camera for astrophotography on the market, and that's why it's earned its place at the top of our list.

Design: In true Nikon fashion, it fits in the hand like a glove. The controls are positioned exactly where your fingers and thumb would naturally want them to be, and we thought it was an absolute dream to shoot with during our Nikon Z8 review.

The Z8 is the first flagship Nikon camera without a vertical grip, giving it a smaller footprint to appeal to a broader market that favors more compact, lightweight cameras. Although, we still wouldn't call it a lightweight camera. Sitting nicely between the Z9 and the Z6 & Z7 models, the 910g/2.01 lbs Nikon Z8 is 430g lighter than the Z9 (30% smaller overall) and 205g heavier than the Z6 II and Z7 II. It's chunky enough to feel solid and comfortable in the hand but light enough to use handheld for long periods.

Performance: For astrophotography, the general rule of thumb is 'the more megapixels, the more noise', so the 45.7MP sensor in the Z8 may ring alarm bells. However, the Z8s stacked sensor results in a faster readout speed and improved noise handling, giving it better light-gathering ability than standard sensors. Thanks to this, it performs much better in low light than you'd expect, so you can afford to increase the resolution without compromising on image quality. We found that with an extended ISO of 102,400, getting clean and detailed images in the dark is effortless — even when we abused the ISO.

Functionality: The Nikon Z8 has some handy astro-specific features which we loved. The Night Vision mode dims the rear screen and displays warm red pixels to help preserve your night vision, and you can also adjust the overall brightness of the viewfinder. It has illuminated buttons so you can see what you're doing without the need for a flashlight, and Starlight View expands the autofocus detection range down to an insane -9EV — fantastic for capturing objects in the dark. There's also an image frame display that adds a thin white border around your image to help confirm your composition.

But as good as this camera is, we can't say it's perfect. We'd have liked a fully articulating screen instead of the rather curious four-way tilting system, and we noticed that the autofocus can occasionally be a little jumpy when compared to the best of the best on the market. These are only tiny niggles, though, and certainly wouldn't put us off buying it.

The Z8 is one of, if not the best mirrorless camera on the market and we think it will typically be found in the hands of professionals rather than anyone new to the hobby. Not only due to its high cost, but the Z8 also has more power than a beginner would need. If you've had your Nikon Z6 II or Z7 II for a while now and want to upgrade to something with more oomph, we think the Nikon Z8 is the camera to go for.

• Read our full Nikon Z8 review

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Best all-rounder camera for astrophotography

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For a long time, the Sony A7 III was considered the camera to beat as there was nothing else like it when it was released back in 2018. Three years later, the Sony A7 IV came along with a whole bunch of updates and new features that improve on an already very impressive camera. Although we think it doesn't measure up to the likes of the Sony A1 and Sony A7R V overall, the Sony A7 IV is the Sony camera to beat when it comes to astrophotography with high ISO applications.

Design: Sony have introduced a number of small but effective upgrades in the design of the camera body. The first, and most obvious, is the addition of a fully articulating touchscreen. It's useful for everyday shooting, but it's particularly handy for astro if you're shooting in the dark at an awkward angle.

They've also swapped a few of the buttons around, with the video record button being in a much more accessible place. We love the customizability of this camera, with 5 custom buttons on the back of the camera, a customizable joystick and 4 buttons on the rear dial, 2 programmable buttons on the top of the body and 4 programmable wheels — phew! There's also 3 custom modes on the main dial, so you can assign all those programmable buttons and wheels completely differently in each mode, as well as the standard camera modes (aperture priority, shutter priority, manual etc).

Performance: While we weren't able to test it out for astrophotography during our Sony A7 IV review due to cloudy UK skies, we did put the ISO handling through its paces inside a dark house with very poor lighting. Amazingly, we only found the noise to become noticeably distracting at ISO 12,800, and even then, Lightroom's AI denoise feature got rid of most of the noise beautifully. It's unlikely you'd need to crank the ISO that high for astro, but we were very impressed with how it handled it.

The dynamic range of the A7 IV is exceptional — we took it to the woods during the mid-afternoon sun and we could easily bring back the details from the harsh shadows and bright highlights. We found the autofocus to be fast and reliable, although it has been outdone in some of the newer models with AI autofocus and Deep Learning. It wasn't perfect and missed focus on the eyes occasionally during portrait shoots, but overall we were happy with how it performed.

Functionality: There are a couple of neat features which makes it a surprising victor for astrophotography (alongside it's fantastic high ISO performance). The first is a seemingly secret Sony-unique feature called 'Bright Monitoring' — we say secret because it turns out not many users actually know about it. This feature enables you to see your composition on the monitor/viewfinder even in dark locations — a game-changer for astrophotography. Users even claim that it enables you to see the alignment of the milky way with your foreground in the dark of night, eliminating the need to take loads of tedious test shots. Cloudy skies meant that we couldn't test the A7 IV out for astrophotography before we published our full review, but we will absolutely be testing this feature out the next chance we get to give you our thoughts on it.

The A7 IV also has an in-built intervalometer for timelapse shooting, which is great for capturing star trails. Although you still have to stack the images in editing software afterwards, it means you can set the camera up to automatically take a series of consecutive images and then escape to the warm comfort of your car or house until it's finished.

We were a little underwhelmed by the resolution of the LCD screen and EVF compared to some of the other Sony models we've used, so hopefully they'll improve that in the next model — but that said, we can't expect it to be on the same level as the professional-grade models like the A1 and the A7R V.

• Read our full Sony A7 IV review

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Best lightweight camera for astrophotography

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If you're looking for a lightweight, compact camera for astrophotography that has great ISO handling and produces beautiful images, the Canon EOS R8 is the obvious choice. However, the trade-off with the R8 is that it's aimed more at beginner/intermediate level users, so more experienced users may have to sacrifice adding a little more weight in exchange for higher specs in another model.

Design: As Canon's lightest full-frame mirrorless camera at just 1.02 lbs (461g), it's ideal to carry with you when traveling or trekking to dark sky locations, as we mentioned in our Canon EOS R8 review. It may be small, but we found the grip deep enough to get a good hold on, and it was comfortable to shoot with all day long.

There were some small design elements we thought could be improved, though. We thought the card slot was in a very awkward place, in with the battery and only accessible from the bottom of the camera. So,when the camera was on a tripod during an astro shoot, we had to take the whole camera off the tripod in order to change the card or battery — plus there's only one card slot.

Performance: When we tested the R8 for astrophotography, we were astounded by how well it coped with high ISO levels. For the price point, we think it's one of the best astrophotography cameras we've tested. With a -6.5EV autofocus detection range, it could comfortably handle ISO 5000 and above with minimal noise, barely any color distortion and the images were bright and detailed, and any minor flaws we did find could easily be edited out in Lightroom.

Functionality: Naturally, for a camera that is aimed at more of a beginner/enthusiast market, it's going to have a few corners cut in order to keep the price down. However, most of the 'it doesn't have this' or 'it doesn't have that' complaints that we have with this camera don't necessarily make a difference when you're using it for astrophotography specifically.

For instance, the R8 doesn't have image stabilization. No bother, many of the lenses do, plus you don't need it for astro anyway. It's also not fully weather-sealed. That's fine, you won't be doing astrophotography when it's raining (unless you get caught out unexpectedly). Worth taking into account if you want a camera for general-purpose usage, but for astrophotography, they certainly aren't dealbreakers.

There's a Handheld Night Scene mode which is pretty cool, but that's more suited to regular low-light shooting for landscapes, cityscapes or portraits rather than for long-exposure astrophotography. There's also an interval timer for timelapse and star trail photography.

Overall it's a very capable camera for astro, wildlife and general-purpose landscapes and portraiture thanks to its reliable autofocus, impressive burst speed and beautiful images. If you can live with its limitations, we think it's a great camera and certainly worthy of carrying with you on your travels.

If you want a lightweight camera but the Canon doesn't excite you, or you're already invested in another camera system, we can recommend the Sony A7C II as Sony's smallest full-frame camera, and for Nikon users, our recommendation would be the next camera in this list...

• Read our full Canon EOS R8 review

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Best beginner camera for astrophotography

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For users jumping into the full-frame system and aren't already invested in a particular brand, the Nikon Zf is our pick for best entry-level full-frame camera. There are cheaper alternatives, but if you want the best money can buy, the Zf would be our choice.

Design: It has a plethora of on-body dials and controls reminiscent of a film SLR and available in 6 different colors, it effortlessly balances style with substance thanks to its good looks, reliable autofocus and excellent low-light performance. There's a button or a dial for everything we could wish for and every little detail has been carefully planned out, down to the tiny LCD on the top of the body.

During our Nikon Zf review, we actually struggled to find anything 'wrong' with it without splitting hairs — we'd like to boost the resolution, add a tilting touchscreen and a second memory card slot, but for an entry-level camera, it's very hard to fault, especially for the price.

Performance: With the same powerful processing engine as the Nikon Z8 and Z9, this camera is not to be underestimated. It also shares the same Deep Learning technology with accurate subject tracking for people, cats, dogs, birds, bicycles, motorbikes, cars, aircraft and trains.

Even at ISO 8000, we found that a 100% crop into the images showed negligible noise, minimal color distortion (a little magenta) and uniform grain across the frame. The images are obviously much cleaner at lower ISOs, but we thought the noise handling was impressive by anyone's standards.

Functionality: Its low light sensitivity drops down to -10EV, which is the lowest of any Nikon camera to date, meaning it can lock on to subjects in the dark effortlessly without hunting around. It also has the widest native ISO range of all the Z series cameras.

It's not just great for astro and low light shooting, it can shoot at 14FPS using the mechanical shutter, opening it up to wildlife and sports photography, too. Pair that with its reliable and accurate autofocus to switch between and track subjects, and you're onto a winner.

The Nikon Zf has often been compared to the Z6 II as they share similar specs, although the Zf wins out thanks to its updated features and newer tech (a 3 year age difference is quite big in the camera world). However, with the recent release of the Z6 III, we'd be willing to bet that more experienced users would pay the $500 more and opt for its higher resolution viewfinder, 'partially stacked' sensor (Nikon's words), faster burst rate and better video specs over the Zf. We'll be reviewing the Nikon Z6 III soon, so keep your eyes peeled for our full, in-depth analysis.

• Read our full Nikon Zf review

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Best camera for astrovideography

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Many of the models on this list are better for stills than video, but if you're looking for a camera that excels in astrovideography and timelapse video, we were insanely impressed with the Sony A7S III (the S stands for 'sensitivity'). It's not the cheapest Sony model by far, so you'll need to consider just how much you focus on video vs stills if you're thinking of buying it.

Design: As a body designed primarily for video, it should come as no surprise that this is the ultimate astrovideography camera, as we noted in our Sony A7S III review. However, herein lies a compromise: the A7S III only features a 12.1MP sensor. This aids the camera's low light performance (since there are fewer pixels, each one is larger and able to gather more light), but means there is less detail if you want to print your photographs, and it's more likely to struggle if you want to turn your hand to more general styles of photography.

Performance: The Sony A7S III boasts near night vision performance, thanks to its ridiculous native ISO range of 80-102,400 (expandable to 409,600, though you'll never actually shoot that high) which also features dual native ISO. While most cameras have just one native ISO (the point at which performance is cleanest), the A7S III has two — one at ISO 640 and another at ISO 16,000 (though this varies in video modes).

Functionality: While this is the best camera for filming stars, though, there is one sting in the tail: the "star eater" phenomenon that plagued earlier Sony cameras (where overactive noise reduction would 'eat' stars misidentified as noise) occasionally rears its head when shooting video with wide angle lenses that are very sharp. That said, it can record unlimited, uncropped 4K video internally at up to 60p, or at 120p with a minimal 1.1x crop, all while retaining full autofocus performance.

It's a fantastic camera if you specialize in astrophotography or video, but if you want to shoot other styles of stills photography like wildlife, landscapes or portraits, you'll want to consider other more well-rounded options.

• Read our full Sony A7S III review

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Best DSLR for astrophotography

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Although mirrorless cameras have been taking over in recent years, there's still a place for DSLR cameras — and many traditionalist photographers still prefer them. While they don't boast any of the newer features or fancy tech like AI-powered autofocus, their fuss-free operation, better battery life and back-to-basics usability puts the control back in the photographer's hands, rather than letting the camera doing all the work.

Design: The chunky DSLR design of the Nikon D850 is a pleasure to handle, boasting weather sealing and it also has a curtain mechanism for the optical viewfinder to stop unwanted light getting into the camera when you're shooting long exposures. It also has two card slots — one XQD / CFexpress and one SD, which is great for professionals or anyone wanting to head on on long night shoots without running out of storage.

A big bonus for astro is the inclusion of illuminated buttons, but only on the left-hand side of the camera — we'd love to have all the buttons light up, but being able to see key controls in the dark is a hugely welcome feature.

Performance: Its 45.7MP image sensor is back side illuminated (constructed so that the circuitry is on the underside, so as not to obstruct the front), which means that it has superior light-gathering capabilities with less noise and better all-round image quality. Many newer mirrorless models also have BSI sensors, but have recently been outshined by stacked sensors. Still, for its age, we think the sensor is good. The sensor works in tandem with a good, if not great, ISO range to produce enviable low-light performance. Like the Sony A7S III above, the D850 also has dual native ISO — but at the less useful ISO 64 and ISO 400 sensitivities.

Functionality: Unlike other cameras on this list, the Nikon D850 doesn't have any dedicated astro features on paper (other than the illuminated buttons). However, it is a fantastic DSLR with specs that lend themselves wonderfully to photographing the night sky — in fact, we think it's the best DSLR ever made, as we mentioned in our Nikon D850 review.

It has 9FPS burst shooting with the extra battery pack, or 7FPS without it — but when you consider that each file is 45.7MP, that's quite impressive. Plus, it has fully electronic silent shooting, meaning you can easily photograph wildlife without disturbing them.

• Read our full Nikon D850 review

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Best Micro Four-Thirds camera for astrophotography

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