Wesley's Tool-Box

Night sky is home to various satellites, both natural and artificial. I've taken photos of these objects in the past few days and here are a couple them for you to enjoy.

The Iridium satellites are known for their flares caused by the interesting shape of their antennae. I had a chance to observe Iridium 97 moving down the northern sky with my iPhone XS. While the satellite shined noticeably for about twenty seconds, this merging of a 1-minute, 610-photo session reveals that it was still dimly visible for some time before and after that. The rest of the satellite reflects the sunlight, just not as effectively.

Device: iPhone XS
Settings: 26mm - ISO 2500 - 1/15s - f/1.8
Filters: None
Time: 2019-02-17 19:04:46-19:05:46 KST
Location: Naju, Korea
610 photos merged with Startrails 2.3


This lunar year's first Full Moon (Jeongwol Daeboreum) was coincidentally a Super Moon. A bigger one would not appear until December 24, 2026. I took this photo just moments after the phase reached its peak, with a visible size of 34' 02.37" and a distance of 350,840km. As a result, it appears nearly 4,000 pixels wide (3,955 pixels, 0.516"/pixel). Unless I keep using the P1000 seven years later, this would be the largest photo of the Moon this camera would ever take.

Device: Nikon P1000
Settings: 3000mm - ISO 100 - 1/400s - f/8
Filters: None
Time: 2019-02-20 01:11:49, 01:14:07 KST
Location: Naju, Korea
2 photos merged with Pixelmator 3.8.1

Orbital prediction indicated that the ISS would be seen passing in front of the Full Moon at a place about 20km away from home. Thanks to the Moon being at an altitude of more than 60 degrees, the space station was to pass close to the observer with an angular size of nearly one degree (58.7"). It seemed be a good opportunity for using the 7-frame full resolution burst mode of the Nikon P1000 camera, so I drove to the observation spot despite the cold weather (-4°C) and inconvenient time (3 AM).


There was about one second of difference in the transit time prediction between different tools, and the burst mode could only take the seven photos in a span of a single second. So I took a guess as to when to press the shutter button and hoped for the best. Luckily, I did manage to catch three frames out of it, as you can see here. The results were sharp and large enough to make out the individual solar panels and modules, proving the capabilities of the P1000's telephoto optics.

Device: Nikon P1000
Settings: 3000mm - ISO 200 - 1/1600s - f/8
Filters: None
Time: 2019-01-22 03:08:23 KST
Location: Yeongam, Korea

Due to the extreme optical zoom, Nikon P1000 actually has a dedicated "Moon Mode" in the scene selection wheel to let you photograph the Moon. However, I wanted to get used to the manual operation of the camera and so I took some photos of the Moon under manual mode. This one looked to be the best one so far, with tiny craters easily visible.

The Moon is currently 1,775 arc seconds wide, while it was 3,462 pixels wide on the photo. This is just a hair wider than the height of a photo that P1000 takes (3,456 pixels). This translates to 0.513 arc seconds per pixel resolution for the camera at maximum zoom.

Device: Nikon P1000
Settings: 3000mm - ISO 200 - 1/100s - f/8
Filters: None
Time: 2018-10-18 21:01 KST
Location: Naju, Korea