Wesley's Tool-Box

Lunar eclipses happen every year, so it's not particularly rare. But they're not always total eclipses. In fact, the last total lunar eclipse in Korea happened in 2011. So this time around, I got myself fully ready to take some nice photos of the event with my superzoom camera, Canon SX50 HS.

On October 8, the Moon was to rise from due east on 17:59 and the eclipse was to start right after at 18:14, but the building next to my workplace was blocking the view. So after the work hours were over, I headed to a nearby overpass and set up my tripod near the center. I was able to start seeing the Moon getting behind the Earth's shadow, but just as I started taking the photos, heavy clouds started to block the view. It was frustrating, but I waited out.

With my company's relocation, I've moved from Suwon to Naju. This city is about 300km south of Seoul, and has less than 100 thousand inhabitants. So the night sky is somewhat more favourable to stargazing. It isn't a dramatic improvement, but I'm happy to be able to continue doing astrophotography. To celebrate the arrival, I did a 10-minute exposure just outside the apartment window. The star trails came out nicely.


The following night, I tried taking a photo of the Andromeda Galaxy. It was to be expected, but the background had less light, in spite of the Moon shining brightly nearby. The resulting photo came out looking better than anything I've tried in Suwon. I have some high hopes for taking some good photos during the new Moon phase. But for now, I'm hoping to get some good view of the lunar eclipse happening in two days.

Device: Canon SX50 HS
Settings #1: 24mm (17% size) - ISO 80 - 600s - f/3.4
Settings #2: 263mm (26% size) - ISO 160 - 300s - f/5.6
Filters: None
Time #1: 2014-10-05 01:25 KST
Time #2: 2014-10-05 23:35 KST
Location: Naju, Korea

On the second attempt to photograph Bode's Galaxy (M81) and Cigar Galaxy (M82), I managed to put the lens hood on. The sky itself wasn't really darker - in fact, quarter moon was up in the sky - but this seem to have reduced the background red glare from the street lights. I should have thought of this sooner.

Anyways, the images now have blacker background, making the galaxies look more clear and natural. Taking multiple shots and stacking them improved the looks even further. Click on the image to see the version in original resolution.

Device: Canon SX50 HS
Settings: 484mm (70% size) - ISO 100 - 300s - f/5.6
Filters: None
Time: 2014-05-06 23:29 to 2014-05-07 00:15 KST
Location: Suwon, Korea
8 photos stacked with RegiStax 6.1.0.8

May of this year is a good time to photograph Saturn. The opposition happens on 3AM, May 11, with the closest approach to Earth happening very close to that. This means that Saturn looks the biggest and brightest compared to other times of the year. The weather forecast says that the night of the opposition may be cloudy or rainy, so I took photos last night instead.

Device: Canon SX50 HS
Settings: 1200mm (2x Digital Teleconverter) - ISO 160 - 1/50s - f/6.5
Filters: None
Time: 2014-05-06 02:32 KST
Location: Suwon, Korea
31 photos stacked with RegiStax 6.1.0.8

Using the iOptron SkyTracker equatorial mount, tracking the galaxies for photographing became somewhat better, despite a murky city sky. While photographing Vesta and Ceres, I also pointed the camera to where Bode's Galaxy (Messier 81) and Cigar Galaxy (Messier 82) were located just below constellation Ursa Major. Although they were fairly dim (magnitude 6.9 and 8.4, respectively), I hoped that it would at least show up in the picture faintly.

After much fiddling with the camera settings and post-processing, the best result I got out of it is the one you see here. Both galaxies' shapes are recognizable, despite this being just a single-frame 5-minute exposure. When the weather becomes favourable again, I'll attempt multiple shots with the same camera settings and see if this will help out further.

Device: Canon SX50 HS
Settings: 484mm (80% size) - ISO 100 - 300s - f/5.6
Filters: None
Time: 2014-04-25 00:40 KST
Location: Suwon, Korea

I've recently bought a motorized equatorial mount called iOptron SkyTracker, which enables the camera to track the stars at the same speed as they move in the sky. This is useful for photographing faint objects through long exposures. But since the light pollution in the city sky hinders long exposure photography in the first place, I was unsure whether this would be of much use.

To see that the mount works as intended and is still useful under an uncooperative sky, I decided to try photographing two kinds things - asteroids and galaxies. For asteroids, the two brightest, Vesta and Ceres, were chosen. They were close to each other while moving in the constellation Virgo, between Arcturus and Mars, in the southern sky around midnight. Ceres is also a dwarf planet, so I would be photographing two types of celestial body at once.

For three nights (April 21-22, 23-24, and 24-25), I photographed the area just above Zeta Virginis (a.k.a. Heze) to catch the movement of two objects. The SkyTracker mount was used on the first and third night because the sky was clear, but the second night was riddled with fog in the lower sky, hindering the view of Polaris which is needed to calibrate the mount. So I had to take the photo using only the camera on high-ISO, (relatively) short exposure settings.

Two things became evident in this round of photographing. One, Vesta (magnitude 5.7) and Ceres (magnitude 7.0) could be clearly seen moving towards west each day. Two, the SkyTracker mount did an excellent job tracking the stars and the asteroids, producing images far better than using camera only. The second night's photo had small streaks, despite having only 10 seconds of exposure. Here are the full resolution photos used for the animation.


Device: Canon SX50 HS
Filters: None
Location: Suwon, Korea

#1: 121mm - ISO 80 - 300s - f/5.0 - 2014-04-22 00:05 KST
#2: 121mm - ISO 1600 - 10s - f/5.0 - 2014-04-24 00:07 KST
#3: 119mm - ISO 80 - 300s - f/5.0 - 2014-04-24 23:19 KST