Wesley's Tool-Box

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

There was another bright pass of International Space Station over the sky this evening. I set up my Canon SX50 HS camera on a nearby park and tried my best to take photos of them.

As always, photographing a tiny object moving at 1 arc degree per second at 50x zoom fully manually isn't really going to work out very well. Even if I somehow catch it at the edge of the frame, it'll exit it in about 1.6 seconds. It only took about 3 minutes for the station to go across the sky and I've only managed to get four shots of it, two of which I'm showing here. They're crops magnified by 2x.

Compared to my first attempt with the same camera, the shot on the left do show the solar panels on the station more distinctly. As the ISS streaked from west to east, its orientation as visible from the ground changed, as is evident between the two photos. It seems that it would be best to try photographing it as soon as it started becoming visible, as the shape looks more recognizable.

Photo 1(Left): 1200mm - ISO 200 - 1/400s (-3.1 mag.)
Photo 2(Right): 1200mm - ISO 200 - 1/200s (-3.9 mag.)
Camera: Canon SX50 HS
Location: Suwon, Korea

While waiting for Apple to announce new products (the event took place on 2AM in Korea Standard Time) for 2013 holiday season, I tried another shot at taking photos of Jupiter with SX50 HS while its Great Red Spot was facing Earth. It's still not very discernible even after post-processing, but I think the wrinkle at the right-hand edge is likely to be it.

Incidentally, Io and Europa were visually close together, but the camera was able to distinguish between the two. Maybe I should try to take the photos while Jupiter is higher up in the sky - it should have less atmospheric disturbance. You can see the stacked photos of the planet and the satellites before composition if you keep reading.

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.

Tonight's clear skies gave me a great opportunity to photograph the International Space Station outright. I didn't know what settings to use, however, so I made a guess. It was okay when it was streaking across the western sky with magnitude of around -2. As it went south, it became brighter, and the shots came out a bit too bright.

At least I got a handful of useful glimpses out of it early while using the tripod to stabilize the camera and trying hard to track it with hand. In the end, the trademark solar arrays and the central area where the astronauts are staying were visible - you can see it as something similar to H.

Settings: Canon SX50 HS - 1200mm - ISO 250 - 1/400s
Processing: 5 photos stacked with RegiStax 6.1.0.8
Time: 2013-08-26 20:03 KST