Wesley's Tool-Box

This series of images I took of the International Space Station (ISS) seem to explain the "sideways" view of the station I've taken a few times before better. Until the close approach, only the center area is visibly illuminated. At the closest point, the solar panels stretching from top to bottom become apparent.

The panels form the two columns of the "H" shape when viewed from the "front". But in these images, the shape is more like a mirrored "ㅔ". I guess this view can reveal a docking spaceship, if there is one and is big enough.

Device: Canon SX50 HS
Settings: 1200mm (2x enlarged) - ISO 160 - 1/320s - f/6.5
Filters: None
Time: 2014-04-06 20:35 KST
Location: Suwon, Korea
Max Magnitude: -3.6

While I have observed the International Space Station (ISS) making a pass in front of the Sun before, it was at a resort far away from home. Yesterday, I had the good fortune of witnessing a pass right at home. My daughter Celine wanted to help out, so I let her set up the equipment and we went to the parking lot to start photographing. We took the photos of the Sun together, and in three of the frames, the ISS was found crossing in front of the Sun. Here is the composite of the three frames set against the stacked 32 frames I shot in 14 seconds while attempting to capture the transit, both in the annotated and full version.

The last frame was really lucky, as it was taken just before ISS got out of the Sun's disk - 0.1 seconds late and we would have ended up taking two frames instead. SX50 HS's regular burst mode takes a photo every 0.43 seconds, so given the transit time of less than a second, this was the best outcome I could expect.

I do wish the fast burst mode, which can take a photo every 0.077 seconds, could take more than 10 photos at once, though. The transit prediction from CalSky is pretty accurate, but local clock error and human reaction delay can creep in. So I would need it to last at least five seconds or so. I should either wait for Canon to make a superzoom camera that can shoot longer bursts, or install an iPhone 5S, which can do 0.1-second burst shots for several minutes, on a telescope. I'm saying this because I missed the Moon - ISS transit on Saturday while using the fast burst mode.


Anyways, here's the animated version of the transit that illustrates the movement quite well. Come to think of it, this sort of pass would be hard to see in person with binoculars - ISS is tiny and moves quite fast, so unless the Sun is magnified really big, it'd be hard to notice.

Device: Canon SX50 HS
Settings: 1200mm - ISO 500 - 1/1250s - f/6.5
Filters: Baader AstroSolar Safety Film
Time: 2014-03-23 08:57 KST
Location: Suwon, Korea
Base photo: 32 photos stacked with RegiStax 6.1.0.8 (08:57:10 - 08:57:24)
Animation: 5 photos (08:57:16.8 - 08:57.18.5)

About two hours ago, National Geographic Channel finished the world's first ever live broadcast from space, at ISS, called "Live From Space". To commemorate this event, I took out my camera and shot the ISS making a pass in the sky about 3 hours before the broadcast.

Interesting thing about the photos this time is that ISS was making a slanted pass, so the angle of view changed noticeably in the 2-minute time span. The solar panels were initially facing almost directly, but it was facing sideways towards the end.

Device: Canon SX50 HS
Settings: 1200mm (3x enlarged) - ISO 80 - 1/320s - f/6.5
Filters: None
Time: 2014-03-15 05:43 - 05:44 KST
Location: Suwon, Korea

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