Wesley's Tool-Box

Launched in 2006, MetOp-A is the first European operational meteorological satellite, which is in a polar orbit. It currently serves as the backup of the MetOp-B that was launched in 2012. They also exhibit flares, although relatively less frequent and dimmer compared to the Iridium fleet.

This photo is a first for me in many aspects. It's the first time I did a long-exposure capture of a satellite flare. Previous ones were done in burst shots, then later animated and/or composited. It's also the first time that I used SX50 HS to capture a flare. iPhone 5S is better at burst shots, but not long exposure. Finally, this is the first non-Iridium flare that I caught in a photo.

The satellite moved downward in the northern sky, below the bright Polaris visible on the left side of the photo. If you click on the photo for a larger version, you can see most of the constellation Ursa Minor / Little Dipper covering the top part.

Considering the light pollution, this observation suggests that the satellite needs to be at least -1.0 magnitude at maximum, and be more than 30 degrees above horizon to make a noticeable streak in the photo. I guess that explains why I couldn't catch Tiangong-1 space station on photo several months ago.

Device: Canon SX50 HS
Settings: 45mm - ISO 200 - 15s - f/4.0
Filters: None
Time: 2014-04-08 21:26:38 KST
Location: Suwon, Korea
Max Magnitude: -2.2

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.


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)

Sun is measured to be the most perfectly round sphere occurring in nature. But as the Sun sets over the horizon, it looks more "squished" than usual due to atmospheric refraction. This photo was taken when the Sun's altitude was merely 3.27 degrees.

You can still see the sunspots just fine - AR11960 (top; "sunspot 1960") and AR11959 (bottom; "sunspot 1959") are visible at the lower area. The light blemish at the lower right edge is the AR11957.

Device: Canon SX50 HS
Settings: 1200mm - ISO 80 - 1/40s - f/6.5
Filters: Baader AstroSolar Safety Film
Time: 2014-01-26 17:25 KST
Location: Suwon, Korea
79 photos stacked with RegiStax 6.1.0.8

City lights and lack of star tracker doesn't mean I couldn't try harder. Zooming in four times more, extreme ISO setting with shorter shutter speed was used to counteract the movements of the stars. Stacking more photos also helped.

In the end, the Andromeda Galaxy became definitely more visible. It now vaguely looks like an ellipse instead of a faint blob.

Settings: Canon SX50 HS - 192mm - ISO 6400 - 5s - f/5.6
Time: 2013-12-15 22:09 - 22:14 KST
Location: Suwon, Korea
18 photos stacked with RegiStax 6.1.0.8

Taking photos of constellations with SX50 HS continues with Andromeda as the target. This one is next to the W-shaped Cassiopeia, so it's easy to spot. With the use of long exposure and filter, the stars making up the constellation nicely shows up in the photo.

Even the faint Andromeda Galaxy can be seen, although it's nothing like the spectacular photos you see in other places. If I were to try to duplicate that sort of feat, I would need to go out of the city and use a star tracker.

Settings: Canon SX50 HS - 48mm - ISO 1600 - 15s - f/4.0
Filters: Baader M&S applied
Time: 2013-12-14 23:51 - 23:57 KST
Location: Suwon, Korea
8 photos stacked with RegiStax 6.1.0.8