Wesley's Tool-Box

Yesterday evening presented a rare opportunity of viewing the sun-lit ISS whizzing by the Moon from where I live. Luckily, the weather cooperated and the sky was mostly clear of clouds. I initially set up a telescope to see it, but the apartment window was too limited for it to calibrate in time, so I fell back to using my SX50 HS's zoom capability instead.

A few minutes before the crossing, the space station started to appear on the western sky. So I told my daughter Celine to come over and see the phenomenon together; we watched it gracefully travel eastward. When I saw that the ISS was about to transit the Moon, I let the burst mode of the camera snap 10 photos in rapid succession at 13fps. Then, we kept watching the ISS until it disappeared into the eastern sky.

Checking the photos, I noticed that the dot the ISS was supposed to be was smaller than what was expected according to CalSky, which predicted the transit. Then I looked at the first photo where the Moon got behind the ISS, which showed a "shadow" much longer than the dot. This is when I realized that the dot was the central area of the space station and the shadow was its solar panels. The size mystery was solved.

For those of you who would like to see a full resolution composite of the ISS-Moon transit, [click here] to load the image. It's a bit sad I can't adjust the ISO setting while shooting in burst mode with the camera - I would've like to have it lowered for less coarse images.

Device: Canon SX50 HS
Settings: 1200mm - ISO 800 - 1/1000s - f/6.5
Filters: None
Time: 2015-04-24 19:56:49 KST
Location: Naju, Korea

When Venus is visible in the evening sky, a crescent Moon can be found nearby roughly once a month in the west. The clouds and fogs cleared up yesterday evening, and I was able to see the two objects above the unfinished skyline of Naju Bitgaram City. A yellowish layer of smog is seen lingering on the horizon in the photo, but this was gone by the morning.

Device: iPhone 6 Plus
Settings: 29mm - ISO 500 - 1/4s - f/2.2
Filters: None
Time: 2015-03-22 19:29 KST
Location: Naju, Korea

With iOS 8, apps can now provide individual manual control of ISO, shutter speed, focus, exposure, and white balance using public API. Apps that take advantage of this can bring fine-grained control of the cameras on the iPhone, a much sought feature by the users especially since iPhone's cameras perform so well. Now, there's a bit of problem with low light mode in iPhone 6 Plus, but that's another story.

The story here is that I used the iPhone 6 Plus camera on manual settings to take a photo of the Moon that's showing through a pair of Bushnell Birding Series 8x40 binoculars. Without them, the Moon would have come out as a tiny blob about 25 pixels wide. I held up the phone to the ocular lens by hand. It's not as impressive as the 50x zoom photos that my Canon SX50 HS can take, but it give me hope that some low-magnification astrophotography could be done with my iPhone with some clever apps and a clamp that can fix the phone to the binoculars.

Device: iPhone 6 Plus & Bushnell Birding Series 8x40
Settings : 29mm - ISO 50 - 1/125s - f/2.2
Filters: None
Time : 2014-11-03 01:34 KST
Location: Naju, Korea

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.