Wesley's Tool-Box

Proving that the prediction data from CalSky is pretty accurate, I was able to capture the International Space Station (ISS) making a pass in front of the Sun using my Canon SX50 HS with my hand-made sun filter yesterday afternoon. My dad was watching the phenomenon with binoculars next to me, but the transit only took a little more than a second, so neither of us were sure of observing it until the proof was found in the captures. A total of three photos contained the silhouette of ISS in the backdrop of the Sun.



Clicking the above shows the Sun (30 frames from the observation stacked with RegiStax 6.1.0.8 ) and ISS captures composed into one in its original resolution.

Clicking the bottom shows the original frames of the capture.
Settings: Canon SX50 HS - 1200mm - ISO 250 - 1/1600s
Time: 2013-08-16 16:50:38 KST
Location: Near Bomunho Lake, Gyeongju, Korea

Instead of stars or planets, the sky today is treating me with lightning strikes at the rate of one every 20 seconds or so. So much lightning, that I was able to catch them twice in a couple of minutes. Good thing I wasn't planning to go to a theme park or something.

In testing the long exposure capabilities of my Canon SX50 HS, I was able to capture the constellation Lyra in its near entirety by accident. Due to cloudy weather and bad light pollution, only the brightest star, Vega was visible to the naked eye. I intended to take a picture of this, but the 1-second exposure revealed the other stars in the constellation as well. I've labeled them in the photo. You can also take a look at the full resolution photo HERE.

Settings: 165mm(6.875x) - ISO 1600 - 1s
Time: 2013-08-07 00:17:01

I've gotten around to fitting Baader AstroSolar safety film onto my Canon SX50 HS. The first round of tests, taking photos of Sun with my daughter, worked pretty well. I forgot to zoom all the way in, but the sunspots are readily visible.

Settings: 864mm (36x) - ISO 80 - 1/100s - 9 photos stacked with RegiStax 6.1.0.8

There's been a lot of fuss (again) about the "Supermoon" that was supposed to come up during the night because the Moon was at the closest distance from the Earth for this year. Well, this is it. It was rather cloudy all day, so I was worried I might not get any good shots. Thankfully, the clouds thinned out from time to time and allowed me to grab enough photos. Remember to click on the photo to see the full-resolution version.

Canon SX50 HS - 2013-06-23 23:11 KST - 1200mm - ISO 80 - 1/60s - 12 photos stacked with RegiStax 6.1.0.8