Wesley's Tool-Box

As Pluto moved toward the western horizon, a planet started to come into the telescope's view through the southern window - Neptune. It was the first time I had seen it in person, but seeing as how relatively dim it is compared to other planets (magnitude 7.8), I decided to take photos the same way I do for stars.

Sure enough, it was caught on the photos as a moving bright spot, next to a 6.9-magnitude star called HD 214686. But I soon discovered that it wasn't the only object moving. A faint dot of about magnitude 13 was moving considerably faster than Neptune. Given the brightness, it had to be a small but known celestial object.

Consulting the minor planet database revealed the object to be 303 Josephina, an asteroid from the main belt with a diameter of about 100km. Out of pure coincidence, I had caught a planet and an asteroid together on several photos.


But the surprise didn't end there for me. I noticed that Neptune either had a bump or a small dot next to it. It turned out that it was Triton, by far the largest satellite of Neptune with apparent brightness of magnitude 13.5. Photographs taken a day apart clearly shows its changing position relative to the planet, as well. So thanks to the long exposure photography, I was able to take a planet, a satellite, and an asteroid all at once.

Here's the full version of the final frame of the animation, if you want to see it.

Telescope: Celestron NexStar 6SE
Device: Sony A5000 (prime focus)
Settings: (1500mm) - (f/10)
Filters: None
Location: Naju, Korea

#1: ISO 800 - 20s - 2015-09-10 00:14 KST
#2: ISO 800 - 20s - 2015-09-10 01:12 KST
#3: ISO 800 - 20s - 2015-09-10 02:34 KST
#4: ISO 1000 - 30s - 2015-09-10 23:28 - 23:30 KST (3 photos stacked)
#4: ISO 1000 - 30s - 2015-09-11 00:32 - 00:37 KST (2 photos stacked)

It seems that I get to see a "great" transit of the ISS in front of the Sun once every year, with the space station appearing large enough to make it look like the letter H. This time, CalSky was predicting a nearly perfect condition at Naju, a near-center pass with an apparent diameter of more than one arc minute (63.1"). With the weather cooperating, I did not want to miss it.

To make sure I did not miss anything, I took out both my Celestron telescope with the smartphone adapter and my SX50 HS camera. I was hoping that at least one of them would catch the occurrence. I hurried with the setup and had everything ready just barely. I let my iPhone 6 Plus start recording the view through the eyepiece of the telescope in 240fps slow motion video, and pushed the shutter on my SX50 HS in continuous shoot mode, all mere moments before the transit.


The SX50 HS captured just one frame, which was sort of expected. The quality was easily better than my previous attempts thanks to the large apparent size. But the real deal was in the iPhone 6 Plus. It had captured 80 frames of the ISS in motion in total, with each frame besting the SX50 HS's efforts. The 240fps video capture truly shined, creating this smooth slow motion video as a result.


Here's the stacked and post-processed composite of the video in a single picture; click it to see it in full resolution. You can appreciate the details of the ISS and the sunspot AR 12339 quite better this way. If you look at the space station up close as seen in the first picture of this post, it's good enough to identify its major features. I've marked them for your convenience.

Telescope: Celestron NexStar 6SE + 25mm eyepiece + 2.5x barlow
Device: iPhone 6 Plus (afocal)
Settings: 29mm - 1280x720 - 240fps - f/2.2
Filters: None
Time: 2015-05-10 13:33:58 KST
Location: Naju, Korea
Stacked with RegiStax 6.1.0.8
- #1: 12 photos
- #2: 10 photos (ISS, each) / 100 photos (Sun)

Yesterday evening presented a rare opportunity of viewing the sun-lit ISS whizzing by the Moon from where I live. Luckily, the weather cooperated and the sky was mostly clear of clouds. I initially set up a telescope to see it, but the apartment window was too limited for it to calibrate in time, so I fell back to using my SX50 HS's zoom capability instead.

A few minutes before the crossing, the space station started to appear on the western sky. So I told my daughter Celine to come over and see the phenomenon together; we watched it gracefully travel eastward. When I saw that the ISS was about to transit the Moon, I let the burst mode of the camera snap 10 photos in rapid succession at 13fps. Then, we kept watching the ISS until it disappeared into the eastern sky.

Checking the photos, I noticed that the dot the ISS was supposed to be was smaller than what was expected according to CalSky, which predicted the transit. Then I looked at the first photo where the Moon got behind the ISS, which showed a "shadow" much longer than the dot. This is when I realized that the dot was the central area of the space station and the shadow was its solar panels. The size mystery was solved.

For those of you who would like to see a full resolution composite of the ISS-Moon transit, [click here] to load the image. It's a bit sad I can't adjust the ISO setting while shooting in burst mode with the camera - I would've like to have it lowered for less coarse images.

Device: Canon SX50 HS
Settings: 1200mm - ISO 800 - 1/1000s - f/6.5
Filters: None
Time: 2015-04-24 19:56:49 KST
Location: Naju, Korea

When Venus is visible in the evening sky, a crescent Moon can be found nearby roughly once a month in the west. The clouds and fogs cleared up yesterday evening, and I was able to see the two objects above the unfinished skyline of Naju Bitgaram City. A yellowish layer of smog is seen lingering on the horizon in the photo, but this was gone by the morning.

Device: iPhone 6 Plus
Settings: 29mm - ISO 500 - 1/4s - f/2.2
Filters: None
Time: 2015-03-22 19:29 KST
Location: Naju, Korea