Wesley's Tool-Box

While the popular media is focused on covering comet C/2012 S1 ISON, there are several other comets that are visible with amateur telescopes right now. One of them is slightly brighter than ISON at the moment - C/2013 R1 Lovejoy, and both are visible to the naked eye if you live in a really remote place. Lovejoy is around 5.3 magnitude, while ISON is around 6 as of this writing.

Comet ISON doesn't rise too high above the horizon before the sunrise washes its view away, so the light pollution in my area is prone to getting in the way of the view as well. In contrast, comet Lovejoy rises up quite high, so it would be in a relatively clear view. So for my first attempt to photograph a comet using my Canon SX50 HS, comet Lovejoy was set as the target.

When I got out to take its pictures, the comet was getting out of Leo Minor and moving westward to Ursa Major. I tried to locate it with Star Walk app on my iPad, but the comet was nowhere to be found, wasting a full hour. So I consulted CalSky instead and it said that it was actually a bit higher up. I searched for the comet there instead and immediately found it.

I set the camera to its most sensitive setting - ISO 6400 at 1-second exposure, and it barely recorded the fuzzy ball. Interestingly, the "bright" star next to it, HD 94456 (HIP 53360), was merely 7.4 magnitude. The 9.2 magnitude HD 94233 (HIP 53216) looked similar in brightness. This meant that the camera would at best only be able to record comets that are visible to the naked eye. I guess photographing comet ISON may be quite a bit more challenging.

On the upside, this sighting posts the upper limits of SX50 HS astrophotography at about 10 magnitude. This should be enough to photograph Uranus, Neptune, and Saturn's moon Titan.

Settings: 1200mm - ISO 6400 - 1s
Time: 2013-11-18 05:14 - 05:15 KST
Location: Suwon, Korea

Photo 1: 05:14, Reduced to 12.5% size, 21 photos stacked
Photo 2: 05:15, Reduced to 50% size, 27 photos stacked
Stacked with RegiStax 6.1.0.8. Click the photo for 2x size.

Looking out the sky with the rainclouds just moving over, the bright (-4.5 magnitude) Venus was visible even at sunset. I pulled out my SX50 HS and got some good shots of the planet with my daughter. The crescent shape is getting ever thinner.

Notably, this is the first "good" Venus photo I got out of the camera so far. Previously, the planet was too close to the horizon and got warped by the atmospheric turbulence, and the angular diameter being too small did not help, either.

Settings: 1200mm (2x enlarged) - ISO 80 - 1/800s - f/6.5
Filters: Baader M&S applied
Time: 2013-11-17 17:27 KST
Location: Suwon, Korea
23 photos stacked with RegiStax 6.1.0.8

Yesterday's passing of International Space Station had another interesting characteristic. It came within about 0.65 arc degrees of Jupiter at the closest, and I ended up taking both objects at once in several frames. This crop, reduced to 30%, shows one of such instances. You can see that the station looked both larger and brighter than Jupiter.


As for Jupiter itself, I photographed its system slightly later. Ganymede was pulling out of Jupiter and was barely visible outside of Jupiter's bright disc.

Time: 2013-11-12 06:02 - 06:23 KST
Top: 1200mm (reduced to 30%) - ISO 80 - 1/640s - 06:02
Bottom: 1200mm, stacked using RegiStax 6.1.0.8
- Jupiter: ISO 80 - 1/320s - 06:20, 7 frames
- Satellites: ISO 800 - 1/10s - 06:23, 27 frames
Location: Suwon, Korea

Just a day after successful testing of the iPhone-based tracker, ISS made a nearly direct overhead approach in the sky as seen from my house. This would provide an excellent opportunity to take biggest shots of the station because it would be at the shortest distance from the observer when it's directly overhead.

As the space station rose in the southwestern sky at 6AM, I began tracking it with iPhone 5S and taking shots with SX50 HS. More than 200 shots were taken, and 44 photos deemed of good quality were selected for processing. You can see the animated version of the approach here, as well as the stacked version that bring out the detail of the station at three points of the observation.

This is the first time I could properly see the full spread of ISS in my photos - the solar panels and the main modules of the station in the iconic H shape configuration are clear and large, especially when it was only about 500km away. I'm frankly amazed that a point-and-shoot bridge camera could photograph a satellite this well even under ideal circumstances. We live in amazing times.

Settings: 1200mm (2x enlarged) - ISO 80 - 1/640s
Photos: 13 frames / 9 frames / 8 frames stacked using RegiStax 6.1.0.8
Time: 2013-11-12 06:00 - 06:02 KST
Location: Suwon, Korea

Earlier this month, I devised a way of photographing the fast-moving International Space Station (ISS) with Canon SX50 HS by tracking the station with iPhone 5S. The phone is mounted on top of the camera using a combination of smartphone tripod mount and hot shoe tripod adaptor. In essence, the phone would serve as a more or less "live wide view" unit, while the camera would keep shooting.

I had a good opportunity to test this setup earlier today, as the space station made its pass from the western sky in the early morning. I aligned the iPhone's screen with SX50 HS's by targeting a faraway object, both at maximum zoom. And then I waited for the station to make an appearance. As soon as I was able to spot it on the phone's screen, I started shooting with the camera.

In the end, I was able to shoot 41 consecutive photos of the station in the span of 18 seconds. This proved that the setup worked beautifully - the only limitation was the tripod not being able to position the camera higher than 70 degrees. Stacked image shows the solar panels of the station, as well as the docked Soyuz spacecraft that carried up the Olympic torch for Sochi 2014 games last week.

Settings: 1200mm - ISO 80 - 1/640s
Time: 2013-11-11 06:50:32 - 06:50:50 KST
Location: Suwon, Korea
Photo: Top photo made by stacking bottom 14 photos using RegiStax 6.1.0.8
Animation: Continuous loop of the 41 photos shot