Wesley's Tool-Box

By default, iOS devices like iPhones and iPads use 4-digit passcodes for the lockscreen. You could also use alphanumeric passcodes that are more secure, but they bring up a keyboard on the lockscreen. This is rather cumbersome compared to a keypad.

What's often overlooked is that there is in fact a nice compromise between the two. You could use a long numeric passcode, and it'll give you a keypad just like when you use a 4-digit passcode, as you can see here. You do need to press a button after entering the digits, but that's because it won't let someone guess how long it is.

I think this is even more useful when coupled with the Touch ID in iPhone 5S. You can still use the fingerprint to conveniently unlock most of the time, and you'll feel more safe in that there is less of a chance someone else could bypass that and unlock using a passcode instead. And the "autofill" of the passcode when you press your finger to unlock doesn't reflect how long the passcode is, either. It just shows nine dots all the time. A perpetrator won't be able to guess the length of the passcode by glancing at your screen.

About a week ago, I made attempts to photograph both International Space Station and China's Tiangong-1 space station, as they were to make a pass in the sky within about 30 minutes of each other. While I was able to witness both, I've failed to photograph them - ISS was going to fast for me to track it with my camera, and Tiangong-1 was too dim.

In the preparation for this failed attempt, I took some shots of Venus through the clouds and adjusted the camera and tripod settings. I wasn't aiming for quality, but at least it shows the crescent shape of the Venus somewhat definitely. So it wasn't a complete loss for that day. In the next several months, Venus will look bigger, and the crescent will become slimmer. I'll be making some follow-up observations.

Camera: Canon SX50 HS
Settings: 1200mm (2x TC) - ISO 200 - 1/15s or 1/100s - f/6.5
Time: 2013-10-30 18:00 KST
Location: Seoul, Korea
8 photos stacked with RegiStax 6.1.0.8

I had a chance to ride the Han-gang river cruise tonight. This is perhaps only the second time to ride on one, despite basically living in the vicinity of Seoul for nearly 15 years and seeing the big river very often.

The last time, I rode the ship during the day, so this was the first time I was able to see the riverside and bridges at night. Lots of lighting fixtures were installed on the bridges during the past decade, and they are quite a sight to see. Read on to see the photos of the bridges I took with iPhone 5S.

Like it was back in June for Saturn,it would be a good time to get photos of Jupiter for the next couple of months. Earth is getting closer to it, meaning bigger angular diameter (about 41.9" now, and will peak at 46.8" in early January), and it rises high up in the sky during the night, lowering distortion from atmospheric disturbance.

With nature cooperating, I tried various combinations of ISO and shutter speed settings on my Canon SX50 HS to capture distinct cloud bands of Jupiter. Today's sweet spot seemed to be at 1/125s with ISO 80 setting. Too bright or dark, and the bands became hard to tell apart. At the optimal setting, the thickening of the lower band was noticeable, and that's where the Great Red Spot (GRS) was.


And this is a composition of that optimal Jupiter photo over the Galilean satellites I took a few minutes later. The satellites are Ganymede, Europa, Io, and Callisto from left to right. Jovian system was at about 44.8 degrees above horizon and climbing the eastern sky, so it was vertically arranged. The photo was rotated clockwise by 90 degrees to show the system horizontally. Read further for specific settings I used.

2012 was a rare year where I was able to photograph two instances of celestrial bodies blocking the Sun. It's also the year I left this blog without updates, so I skipped on sharing what I caught, at this place. I'm going to rectify this problem with this post.

After I uploaded the composite photo of the partial solar eclipse yesterday, I remembered that I also made an animated GIF version of it. The left one is this. If you click the thumbnail, you'll be able to see the 24 photos in succession.

The right one is the Venus making a transit of the Sun, which is quite rare - the next one will happen in 2117. I was in Madison, Wisconsin at the time, and was able to catch the event as the Sun was setting into the western sky. It was very cloudy that day, but I was able to make do and catch enough photos to make an animated version out of it. Click the thumbnail to see it in full glory.

- Partial solar eclipse
Camera: Canon EOS 450D + Tamron 18-270mm Di II VC PZD
Time: 2012-05-21 06:51 - 08:46 KST (UT+9)
Composition: 24 frames, 5-minute interval
Location: Seoul, Korea

- Transit of Venus
Camera: Canon EOS 450D + Tamron 18-270mm Di II VC PZD
Time: 2012-06-05 18:35 - 20:23 CDT (UT-5)
Composition: 12 frames, 10-minute interval
Location: Madison, Wisconsin, USA