Wesley's Tool-Box

The first total lunar eclipse of this year was an interesting one in that it was a so-called "Super Blue Blood Moon". The visible size is the largest, so it's a Supermoon. It's the second full Moon of the month, so it's a Blue Moon. The Moon hidden behind the Earth's shadow during the eclipse looks reddish, so it's a Blood Moon. This was the first such occurrence seen in Korea since December 1982, so it's not common.

The sky was pretty cloudy all the way to the late evening yesterday, so I had nearly given up on seeing it. But I was in luck and the clouds had started clearing up soon after the eclipse had started. So I hurriedly got my Sony camera and a tripod out to catch the event. It had only half a charge left, but I managed to photograph the progress for two hours, including the deepest point occurring around 22:29. I think it turned out fine - here's the composite photo showing the progress of the eclipse in 5-minute interval.

Device: Sony A5000 + SELP1650 (E PZ 16–50 mm F3.5–5.6 OSS)
Settings: 50mm - ISO 100 - 2s - f/5.6
Filters: None
Time: 2018-01-31 21:40-23:40 KST
Location: Naju, Korea

It's been more than two years since I talked about satellite flares here, but I now have something to show you. As you can see, I had a camera successfully capture the flares coming from an Iridium satellite for the first time. Past efforts used iPhones because I was focused in capturing the motion of the flares. In this photo, the ever-growing Naju Bitgaram City provided a colourful backdrop.

Device: Sony A5000 + SELP1650 (E PZ 16–50 mm F3.5–5.6 OSS)
Settings: 24mm - ISO 400 - 20s - f/4.5
Filters: None
Time: 2016-08-30 05:06 KST
Location: Naju, Korea

Nearly two months ago, I realized that the southern window at home provides a view of the Milky Way with long-exposure photography. Although the result from that time was satisfactory, I felt that a stacked approach would be even better. And now, you see the result of stacking eight photos. It's indeed much smoother even at a larger size.

By not using a star tracker, though, the stars were subject to lens distortion at the edges. This is where the flaws of the bundled lens of the A5000 become quite apparent. But I decided to leave it like this since it draws your attention to the center.

Device: Sony A5000 + SELP1650 (E PZ 16–50 mm F3.5–5.6 OSS)
Settings: 16mm - ISO 1000 - 20s - f/3.5
Filters: None
Time: 2016-08-29 21:48-22:05 KST
Location: Naju, Korea
8 photos stacked using Pixelmator

This year's Perseids meteor shower was predicted to be prominent, garnering lots of public interest. Unfortunately for someone in Naju, the northern sky that the shower was to take place is polluted with light from Gwangju, making it hard to watch the fainter ones. To get a better view, I moved about 17km southwest to the Naju Bannam tumuli (ancient tomb mounds that encompass Sinchon-ri, Deoksan-ri, and Daean-ri tombs) next to the Naju National Museum. Upon arrival, I was disappointed to discover that the light pollution was still quite bad.

It was still better than being at home, so I set up my camera with the Deoksan-ri tombs #2 (left) and #3 (right) in front. There were already two families nearby who came to watch the sky. In the two hours I stayed, I was able to watch about five meteors falling, far less than the supposed maximum of 150 per hour. Of those, the camera caught two of them, the most striking one being shown here. The streak was going through the Andromeda constellation; the fuzzy dot to the left of the streak is the Andromeda Galaxy.

Meanwhile, the airplanes appeared much more often in the sky - there was one every five minutes or so. This is due to being more or less in the direct path of the flights between Seoul and Jeju, as well as Incheon and Southeast Asian cities. Even in this photo, the Mandarin Airlines flight AE231 (Incheon-Taipei) was caught on the left as a knotted line.

Device: Sony A5000 + SELP1650 (E PZ 16–50 mm F3.5–5.6 OSS)
Settings: 16mm - ISO 400 - 15s - f/3.5
Filters: None
Time: 2016-08-12 23:37:27 KST
Location: Naju, Korea

A few hours after walking in the rain to see a movie yesterday, I was getting ready to sleep. Then I noticed that the sky was crystal clear, something I haven't seen in more than nearly two weeks (or three, in the night). Not to pass up this opportunity, I got my camera out. With so many stars visible, I wondered if the Milky Way Galaxy could be captured even with all the lights from the apartment buildings nearby.

After a few tries, it became clear that indeed it could be done, if somewhat faintly. Adjusting the levels, curves, and contrast brought out further details. Individual colour channels were untouched, yet the sky showed a very nice gradient. This may be an unintended affect of the light pollution near the horizon and I like how it turned out.

Device: Sony A5000 + SELP1650 (E PZ 16–50 mm F3.5–5.6 OSS)
Settings: 16mm - ISO 2000 - 20s - f/3.5
Filters: None
Time: 2016-07-08 00:44 KST
Location: Naju, Korea