Wesley's Tool-Box

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.

In the light of the upcoming Chinese lunar calendar support in iOS 8, I've cross-compared the Korean and Chinese lunar calendar data to see where exactly the two calendars differ. The chart below shows the result.

The difference mostly happens one lunar month at a time, during which the Korean lunar calendar trails the Chinese by one day. 2012 had a special case where the lunar month became different, as the Korean one had a leap third month while the Chinese one had a leap fourth month.

The chart covers all dates between 1901 and 2050 by the Gregorian (regular Western) calendar.

If you want to add this information to your calendar, use the following URL:
Lunar Calendar Difference ICS file

Download the ICS file and open up in your calendar app. If you're using Google Calendar, right-click and copy the URL first. Then on the "Other calendars" menu on the left side of the Google Calendar, click the drop-down button on the right and select "Add by URL". You can paste the URL there to add the calendar.


Calendar data compared were from:
Korean: Korea Astronomy & Space Information
Chinese: Hong Kong Observatory

As noted by Apple on the iOS8 announcement, using lunar calendar on the device will become easier. I'm sure a lot of the Koreans have been waiting for this. Until now, there hadn't been a system-wide support, so a user would have had to use an app that could display and manage this calendar on its own. This hassle should go away when the new iOS version arrives.

Sadly for the Koreans, this lunar calendar is being called "Chinese Calendar" on the system. Of course, if the user knows how to read basic Chinese glyphs, it isn't much of a practical issue. The dates mostly match, and the names of the year based on the sexagenary cycle are identical as well.

But the reason why this can't simply be generalized as "lunar calendar" is because it's based on measurements at Beijing, not Seoul. Because of the differences in latitude and longitude between the two capital cities, the phase measurements of the Moon slightly differ. In fact, the dates were off by a day for about five four months in 2012. Even with these downsides, Koreans end up benefitting from Apple's eager push into the Chinese market.

To use the lunar calendar, go to Settings > Mail, Contacts, Calendars > Calendars and select "Chinese" from the Alternate Calendars. After that, the lunar date will show in Chinese on the Notification Center below the regular date.

Meanwhile, if someone in your contacts keeps the birthday in lunar date, you can select "add birthday" to designate one. After that, the Calendar app will show that person's "Chinese Birthday" on the lunar birthday. I expect that this will be of much use to many Koreans.