Entries tagged as satellite

Iridium 12 satellite flare

Iridium 12 streaks down just below Polaris

Last Thursday, Iridium 12 was making a bright, magnitude -6.1 flare in the northern sky just below Polaris, so I took its photos with my iPhone. To eliminate the camera shake in the images, I used Hugin for the first time. It seems to do an excellent job of it.


Device: iPhone 5S
Settings: 30mm - ISO 2000 - 1/15s - f/2.2
Filters: None
Time: 2014-04-03 19:58 KST
Location: Suwon, Korea
240 photos stabilized with Hugin 2013.0.0 and combined with Startrails 2.3
Defined tags for this entry: , , ,

Sun - ISS transit seen at home

ISS passing in front of the Sun, annotated

Celine takes pics of the Sun
Full composite of the transit
While I have observed the International Space Station (ISS) making a pass in front of the Sun before, it was at a resort far away from home. Yesterday, I had the good fortune of witnessing a pass right at home. My daughter Celine wanted to help out, so I let her set up the equipment and we went to the parking lot to start photographing. We took the photos of the Sun together, and in three of the frames, the ISS was found crossing in front of the Sun. Here is the composite of the three frames set against the stacked 32 frames I shot in 14 seconds while attempting to capture the transit, both in the annotated and full version.

The last frame was really lucky, as it was taken just before ISS got out of the Sun's disk - 0.1 seconds late and we would have ended up taking two frames instead. SX50 HS's regular burst mode takes a photo every 0.43 seconds, so given the transit time of less than a second, this was the best outcome I could expect.

I do wish the fast burst mode, which can take a photo every 0.077 seconds, could take more than 10 photos at once, though. The transit prediction from CalSky is pretty accurate, but local clock error and human reaction delay can creep in. So I would need it to last at least five seconds or so. I should either wait for Canon to make a superzoom camera that can shoot longer bursts, or install an iPhone 5S, which can do 0.1-second burst shots for several minutes, on a telescope. I'm saying this because I missed the Moon - ISS transit on Saturday while using the fast burst mode.

Animation of the Sun - ISS transit

Anyways, here's the animated version of the transit that illustrates the movement quite well. Come to think of it, this sort of pass would be hard to see in person with binoculars - ISS is tiny and moves quite fast, so unless the Sun is magnified really big, it'd be hard to notice.

Device: Canon SX50 HS
Settings: 1200mm - ISO 500 - 1/1250s - f/6.5
Filters: Baader AstroSolar Safety Film
Time: 2014-03-23 08:57 KST
Location: Suwon, Korea
Base photo: 32 photos stacked with RegiStax 6.1.0.8 (08:57:10 - 08:57:24)
Animation: 5 photos (08:57:16.8 - 08:57.18.5)
Defined tags for this entry: , , , , , ,

ISS just before "Live from Space"

12 photos of ISS making a pass

ISS pass animated
About two hours ago, National Geographic Channel finished the world's first ever live broadcast from space, at ISS, called "Live From Space". To commemorate this event, I took out my camera and shot the ISS making a pass in the sky about 3 hours before the broadcast.

Interesting thing about the photos this time is that ISS was making a slanted pass, so the angle of view changed noticeably in the 2-minute time span. The solar panels were initially facing almost directly, but it was facing sideways towards the end.

Device: Canon SX50 HS
Settings: 1200mm (3x enlarged) - ISO 80 - 1/320s - f/6.5
Filters: None
Time: 2014-03-15 05:43 - 05:44 KST
Location: Suwon, Korea
Defined tags for this entry: , , ,

Here's that half Moon

A good-looking first quarter Moon

Here's that picture of the Moon I took a few days ago while photographing planets. The terminator highlights the craters well.

Device: Canon SX50 HS
Settings: 1200mm - ISO 80 - 1/30s - f/6.5
Filters: None
Time: 2014-03-10 23:46 KST
Location: Suwon, Korea
40 photos stacked with RegiStax 6.1.0.8
Defined tags for this entry: , , ,

Iridium 20 satellite flare


This is a recording of the flare from Iridium 20 satellite over at Yatap subway station in Seongnam.

Device: iPhone 5S
Settings: 30mm - ISO 1250 - 1/15s - f/2.2
Filters: None
Time: 2014-01-28 19:25 KST
Location: Seongnam, Korea
Defined tags for this entry: , , , ,

Copyright (C) 1996-2025 Woo-Duk Chung (Wesley Woo-Duk Hwang-Chung). All rights reserved.