Wesley's Tool-Box

The International Space Station was to make a very close pass to Rigel, one of the brightest stars making up the Orion constellation, last Saturday evening where I live. The separation at the closest point was around 0.055°, making it look like the space station passing right over the star to the naked eye. Instead of manual tracking, I decided to fix the telescope on Rigel and record the pass with iPhone X's 4K 60fps video mode. A total of 50 consecutive frames captured the rapid movement. The windy condition, coupled with relatively low angle (35.6°) blurred the results a lot, so I should try this technique again at a higher angle.


Here's the rotated video of the pass, once at the original speed and once at the slow speed.

Telescope: Celestron NexStar 6SE + X-Cel LX 9mm eyepiece
Device: iPhone X (afocal)
Settings: 28mm - ISO 880 - 1/1500s - f/1.8
Filters: None
Date/Time: 2018-03-24 20:00:59 KST
Location: Naju, Korea

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

This summer is proving to be particularly lightning-prone around this area. About two weeks ago (July 14), a lightning strike set fire to an empty house near my home. This afternoon, between around 17:10 and 17:25, lightning was striking left and right every few seconds. The two photos you see here were taken at 17:18. As a result, the internet connection at my apartment complex was down for about an hour and a half (and subsequently this website was not accessible at the time), and a small village near the city experienced a power outage.


Just as the lightning started to subside, we were met with heavy downpour for about 15 minutes. The rain eventually subsided about half an hour later, but not before filling the then-empty company pond and creating pockets of water on the road around the city. What a strange weather to be had for the last day of July.

As I dropped by Gwangju to catch a movie (I'll be posting a comic tomorrow), the western sky was adorned with an alignment of some of the bright bodies of the solar system as seen from the Earth - the Moon, Mars, and Venus. The occurrence was relatively well-publicized, but I forgot to carry a dedicated camera tonight. Luckily, the telephoto lens of the iPhone 7 Plus pulled through and I was able to capture this sight over the neighbourhood just before Venus dropped behind the buildings.

Device: iPhone 7 Plus
Settings: 56mm - ISO 1000 - 1/12s - f/2.8
Filters: None
Time: 2017-02-01 21:12 KST
Location: Gwangju, Korea