Wesley's Tool-Box

The Moon was photographed right after Venus last Saturday due to its proximity to the planet. It's been more than three months since I took picture of it, so it was an interesting refresher.

The shadows make the craters look more pronounced, which produces a lot more interesting photo than a Full Moon. The little craters inside the "seas" were pretty cool to notice, too. It was the first time I used the Moon & Skyglow filter on the Moon, and I guess that helped, too.

Settings: Canon SX50 HS - 1200mm - ISO 80 - 1/60s - f/6.5
Filters: Baader M&S applied
Time: 2013-12-07 17:41 KST
Location: Suwon, Korea
67 photos stacked with RegiStax 6.1.0.8

2012 was a rare year where I was able to photograph two instances of celestrial bodies blocking the Sun. It's also the year I left this blog without updates, so I skipped on sharing what I caught, at this place. I'm going to rectify this problem with this post.

After I uploaded the composite photo of the partial solar eclipse yesterday, I remembered that I also made an animated GIF version of it. The left one is this. If you click the thumbnail, you'll be able to see the 24 photos in succession.

The right one is the Venus making a transit of the Sun, which is quite rare - the next one will happen in 2117. I was in Madison, Wisconsin at the time, and was able to catch the event as the Sun was setting into the western sky. It was very cloudy that day, but I was able to make do and catch enough photos to make an animated version out of it. Click the thumbnail to see it in full glory.

- Partial solar eclipse
Camera: Canon EOS 450D + Tamron 18-270mm Di II VC PZD
Time: 2012-05-21 06:51 - 08:46 KST (UT+9)
Composition: 24 frames, 5-minute interval
Location: Seoul, Korea

- Transit of Venus
Camera: Canon EOS 450D + Tamron 18-270mm Di II VC PZD
Time: 2012-06-05 18:35 - 20:23 CDT (UT-5)
Composition: 12 frames, 10-minute interval
Location: Madison, Wisconsin, USA

International Space Station was to make a pass over the early evening sky. I wasn't quite sure if it would be visible because the Sun just set over the horizon and the sky was still relatively bright.

My worries were unfounded when I noticed a bright dot streaking from the southeastern side of the sky - it was nearly -4 in apparent magnitude. I had just enough time to capture it passing below the Moon and then moving into the west. The movement was very similar to my previous ISS sightings, and the close-up photos made me sure it wasn't some airplane making a coincidental pass. It was quite a fun experience overall.

There are two types of blue moon and neither refers to the moon's visible colour. The first one is the full moon that appears for a second time in the same month. The last one of this kind appeared on August 31, 2012, with the next one scheduled for July 31, 2015.

The second one is the third full moon of a season where the season contains four full moons instead of the usual three. The moon I saw today in the early morning is one of such kind. The next one is to show up on May 21, 2016. You can clicked the cropped image above to see the full-resolution version in its 2700x2700 pixel glory.

Settings: Canon SX50 HS - 1200mm (w/ 2x Digital TC) - ISO 80 - 1/400s
Time: 2013-08-21 01:00AM KST