Wesley's Tool-Box

While many comets pass near the Earth every year, most of them don't get bright enough to be easily observable. The Tsuchinshan-Atlas (C/2023 A3) comet was an exception, and it was apparently bright enough to be spotted with naked eye in early October. But during that time the weather was either cloudy or rainy where I live, so nearly missed out on personally observing it.

Thankfully, patience and readiness paid off, and when the skies were cleared up for a few hours during the evening yesterday I got my iPhone 16 Pro out to take photos of the comet from the balcony. The best example of the observation is what you're seeing in the first photo.

Although the comet was no longer visible to the naked eye and there was plenty of light pollution from the city, the camera on the phone was still able to capture the comet with an 8-second exposure under Dark Mode. Marfik (Lambda Ophiuchi), a 3.8-magnitude star is right next to it, and the 4.3-magnitude Sigma Ophiuchi is below it, so you can gauge that the comet was at least as bright as a 3-magnitude star at the time. This is in line with my previous observations where the iPhone's wide-angle lens was good enough to capture a star as dim as magnitude 5.

Device: iPhone 16 Pro
Settings: 24mm equiv. - ISO 800 - 8s - f/1.78
Time: 2024-10-20 18:56 KST
Location: Naju, Korea

After observing the ISS last year, I was waiting for some interesting changes on board the space station. And this came in the form of the Boeing Starliner spacecraft docking on June 6 as a part of the Crew Flight Test. This test was originally planned to last about a week, but thruster issues kept preventing its return to Earth. This meant that when I finally got the opportunity to make an observation in Daejeon after the monsoon season was over, I could photograph it with the ISS.

Weather in August was still unstable, and forecast for August 15 was cloudy with a chance of rain in many places. But outlook for Daejeon was clear, so drove my car there to make an attempt. And as forecasted, I could see the Sun onobstructed and was able to make a satisfactory observation, as you can see in the composite photo above. The docked Starliner is easily visible as a bump on the left-hand side of the space station's main modules. You can also see the large sunspot named AR3784 near the center of the Sun.

For those who are not familiar with the space station's structure, here's an enlarged photo showing where the Boeing Starliner is currently located within the space station. It's docked to the IDA-2 at Harmony module's forward port. SpaceX Dragon spacecrafts have docked at this location before, so some of my previous observations show that at the same spot instead.

Device: Nikon P1000
Settings: 3000mm - ISO 125 - 1/2000s - f/8
Filters: ICE N100000 (Neutral Density 16.5 Stop)
Time: 2024-08-15 14:20 KST
Location: Daejeon, Korea
17 photos processed with Pixelmator 3.6.6, RegiStax 6.1.0.8, and PIPP 2.5.9

2023 had been another interesting year. In terms of travelling around the world, things have gotten almost back to the levels of pre-pandemic levels. This allowed me to visit many new places as well as revisit some old ones. But for watching the first sunrise of the year, nothing is more comfortable than doing it right at home. Thankfully, skies were almost totally clear, allowing my phone to capture the scene with clarity. Like the photo, I hope everyone has a bright year ahead of you.

For the full 12-minute progress (sped up 4 times) of the sunrise, check out the video that I uploaded.

Device: iPhone 15 Pro
Settings: 77mm equiv. - ISO 25 - 1/469s - f/2.8
Time: 2024-01-01 08:00 KST
Location: Naju, Korea

I went to San Francisco to pick up my iPhone 15 Pro on the launch day, September 22, 2023. The primary advantages of this model over the previous ones are USB-C support and reduced weight. Unless you were getting a Pro Max version, the camera on the Pro series did not get much of a hardware improvement. So when I decided to do some comparison shots with the Harvest Moon photography during the Chuseok holidays, I chose some older models - iPhone 11 Pro and iPhone 13 Pro.

There were expectedly some notable quality differences between the three models. While iPhone 11 Pro does have a three-lens setup like the rest, the telephoto lens is only capable of 2x zoom. As a result, the size of the Moon in the photo was the smallest and least detailed. Both iPhone 13 Pro and 15 Pro have the 3x zoom lens on them, but for some reason the 15 Pro shot a consistently sharper image. Perhaps a slight hardware and software processing differences were at play. In the end, the latest was indeed the best.

Further details of the shooting sessions have been outlined in a separate video.

After returning mostly empty-handed the day before due to the scrubbed launch, I set out to Nangdo again on May 25, 2023, to watch the second attempt of the third launch of the Nuri rocket, a.k.a. KSLV-II. The weather was much better than during the first attempt, so I was able to get a mostly clear view of the launchpad and the rocket itself. However, being an evening launch with heavy clouds above still posed some challenges for getting good shots with my Nikon P1000. Fortunately, it worked out well for the most part and I could grab a nice still of the lift-off as you can see here.

The rocket soared through the sky mostly uneventfully while showing off the flames nicely as you can see here. Then Nuri disappeared into the clouds a mere minute later, so it wasn't possible to witness the stage separation. Still, people were happy to see a good, successful launch in person. I uploaded the recordings of the launch here.

Device: Nikon P1000
Settings: 3000mm - ISO 200 - 1/40s - f/8
Filters: Hoya Fusion Antistatic CIR-PL
Time: 2023-05-25 18:24 KST
Location: Yeosu, Korea
Photos processed with Pixelmator 3.3.3

The two biggest objects orbiting the low earth orbit, International Space Station (ISS) and the Tiangong Space Station (a.k.a. Chinese Space Station or CSS) can be seen transiting the Sun every now and then. But because their orbital characteristics are different, it's hard to see the two like that on the same day within the 200 km range. And it's much rarer for the two to be seen in front of the Sun at the same time. But earlier this month, I found out that I could see the next best thing - seeing the two make the transit from the same location within 14 minutes of each other.

The result of this observation is shown here as a multiple-frame composite. Thanks to the weather, both space stations were photographed clearly and you can make out their distinct shapes - the less dense one is Tiangong. And because the observations occurred within a short timeframe, it's easy to gauge the relative apparent size difference between each other.

Close-ups of the two space stations make this more apparent. The ISS was 53 arc-seconds wide at 521 km away, while Tiangong was 37 arc-seconds wide at 460 km away. The difference in distance shows that Tiangong's orbit is lower than that of ISS. In fact, Tiangong's nominal orbit is around 375 km, while ISS is at about 420 km.

If the ISS was observed at the same distance, it would have been 60 arc-seconds wide. This means that Tiangong, which was fully built a few months ago, is roughly 60% as wide as the ISS and much bigger than what the transit finder website claims. I think that it's showing the size of just the core module (Tianhe), not the entire structure.

Maybe if I get lucky I will be able to spot the two making the transit at the same time in the future. Until then, I'll keep looking.

Device: Nikon P1000
Settings: 3000mm - ISO 200 - 1/1000s - f/8
Filters: ICE N100000 (Neutral Density 16.5 Stop)
Time: 2023-04-07 11:00 - 11:14 KST
Location: Dangjin, Korea
28 photos (14 each) processed with Pixelmator 3.3.2, RegiStax 6.1.0.8, and PIPP 2.5.9