Wesley's Tool-Box

Nuri rocket (a.k.a. KSLV-II) launches have become something of an annual event for the past half decade. And visiting a small island in Yeosu to witness their launches in person has become a personal ritual of mine. The fifth launch of the rocket occurred at 12:25 PM on October 7, 2026 without any delays, and like the previous launches except for its maiden one, it was successful.

While successful launches all look fairly similar, there can be some interesting differences. Last time, it was a first-ever night launch. This time, it was done right in the middle of the day. All other ones were done in late afternoons. And as luck would have it, a seagull happened to be passing in front of the rocket just after takeoff, allowing me to capture this fun photo.

Another thing about this observation was that it was the second time that I used an iPhone 17 Pro Max to capture a rocket launch. Since I normally upgrade my iPhones once a year, I would have normally used different phones for each launch. But I'm waiting for iPhone Neo to be release on October 23, so this did not happen. And since iPhone Neo won't have a telephoto lens, it's likely that I'd still bring the 17 Pro Max to the sixth launch as well. Here's how the rocket looks like with its telephoto lens at maximum zoom.

The close-up shots are still done with Nikon P1000, of course. There are still no digital cameras with built-in lens that can surpass its 125x optical zoom after nearly a decade, so it's still my workhorse for astrophotography and related stuff. I still need to find ways to stabilize my manual tracking, though. At least I've been able to make up for it a bit with post-processing.

Speaking of tracking, one unexpected hidrance this time was the midday Sun. As the rocket climbed up high, it got closer to the Sun and made it harder to keep track of the rocket. Fortunately, I was still able to record the first stage separation that occurred about 2 minutes after liftoff.

You can check this out as well as the liftoff itself on the video of the launch that I uploaded on YouTube.