Author Topic: Last night launch (Read 5791 times)

Peter Ferguson · « **on:** February 17, 2010, 11:58:17 PM »

Monday, February 8, 2010 @ 4:14 am

Top of the Intracoastal Waterway Bridge in Ponte Vedra, FL

115 Miles from the launch

34 Degrees outside!

I believe this was unfortunately the last night shuttle launch.

Brian Massey · « **Reply #1 on:** February 18, 2010, 12:02:34 AM »

Awsome picture! Did you take it by chance?? My uncle was a chemist and helped develop the tiles used on the shuttle. He has some great pictures of launces as he was at most of them until his death 9 years ago.

Brian

Tom Niebuhr · « **Reply #2 on:** February 18, 2010, 06:12:44 AM »

Spectacular picture! Peter, if you took the picture it is worth $$$$$

Larry Fulwider · « **Reply #3 on:** February 18, 2010, 07:56:41 AM »

Quote from: Peter Ferguson on February 17, 2010, 11:58:17 PM

. . .

34 Degrees outside!

. . .

What would Feynman say?

Larry Fulwider

EddyR · « **Reply #4 on:** February 18, 2010, 08:09:56 AM »

Peter how long was the exposure? I see the star traces.
Ed

Bill Hodges · « **Reply #5 on:** February 18, 2010, 12:15:56 PM »

That is the prettiest launch photo I have ever seen. I watched it from my back yard here is St. Augustine.

Bill Hodges

Peter Ferguson · « **Reply #6 on:** February 18, 2010, 04:01:57 PM »

I wish I had taken it. A friend sent it to me . The exposure was several minutes thus the stars are lines. Bill, the shot was taken off of the 210 bridge in Ponte Vedra just up the road from you.
Someone at work told me he saw it on the NASA photo of the day site , so I looked and heres a bigger image. Pretty cool site.I think I'll bookmark this one.
http://antwrp.gsfc.nasa.gov/apod/ap100213.html

Alan Hahn · « **Reply #7 on:** February 18, 2010, 08:38:33 PM »

Quote from: Larry Fulwider on February 18, 2010, 07:56:41 AM

What would Feynman say?

Larry Fulwider

I'm thinking they have changed the o-rings.

Roger Vizioli · « **Reply #8 on:** February 18, 2010, 09:37:33 PM »

More pics/videos from NASA.
Enjoy!

http://www.freewebs.com/jnbrown/

Roger V.

Mike Keville · « **Reply #9 on:** February 18, 2010, 09:38:58 PM »

That is just beautiful. Thanx for posting it!!!

Steve Helmick · « **Reply #10 on:** February 18, 2010, 09:48:04 PM »

Quote from: Alan Hahn on February 18, 2010, 08:38:33 PM

I'm thinking they have changed the o-rings.

Yes, we do have a new O-ring in charge. Been in charge for a year, or does it just seem that long?

Steve

Bill Heher · « **Reply #11 on:** February 18, 2010, 10:15:01 PM »

We may not get another chance to see a Shuttle light up the pre-dawn darkness, but I am guessing that one of these will be visible for a few miles!

I can see a Delta III w/ solids from my house in Orlando, so I'm guessing this bad boy will show up another 20-30 miles.

John Stiles · « **Reply #12 on:** February 19, 2010, 01:35:27 AM »

Thanks, I swiped it from ya to use as my new desktop background.

Bill Heher · « **Reply #13 on:** February 19, 2010, 05:23:32 AM »

John / anyone

If you want I have a hi-res shot taken last year showing launch complex 39A / B with a shuttle ready on each pad. This was for the Hubble Repair Mission - they had to have a back-up on the pad in case of damage during launch to the primary orbiter. Last time there was ever 2 operational shuttles on the pad at the same time.

Thi pic file is too big to post- drop me an e-mail and I'll fwd a copy to anyone interested.

Here is a 975kb copy- the original bit map is big enough that you can zoom in and read the name Atlantis on the near one.

EddyR · « **Reply #14 on:** February 19, 2010, 07:44:02 AM »

Here is some trivia about Cape shots. Since the days of the moon shots almost all the photos shown in newpapers around the world were done by one St-Pete Times newspaper photographer. He was allowed to set up many Nikon motor driven cameras with many different lenses that were set off using a sound tripping device on each one. Some of the cameras were quite close using wide angle lenses. None of the cameras were ever damaged buy the take off blast but many were tipped over by it and landed in mud and water. Each camera was sealed in a plastic bag with a opening for the lens.He had to set them up the day before the launch. He used as many as 50 cameras for some of the moon shots. I prepped and repaired all his cameras and also built some of the hardware for the astronauts so they could use the Hassellblad cameras with there gloved hands. Exposure in space is always the same so the camera setting were left at one setting for almost all shots. Most of the cameras were preset at 1/250 at f/11. I also built the camera John Glen used on his first orbit flight. It was a simple Ansco Autoset with a big viewfinder added and a large wind lever so it could be used with one hand.
Ed

Steve Fitton · « **Reply #15 on:** February 19, 2010, 07:52:51 AM »

Whoah Eddy, thats totally cool! What a neat job to work on!

As an aside, I bet today's modern digital SLRs (they don't do digital medium format, do they?) would not react too well to being tipped over off a tripod!

You'd get a kick out of talking to my Dad, he worked on the television cameras carried in the Apollo and Shuttle vehicles. He still puzzles about how the astronauts managed to mangle some of his stuff

Steve Fitton · « **Reply #16 on:** February 19, 2010, 07:55:50 AM »

Something I just thought of, is there a website somewhere that lists scheduled launches out of the cape-launches for any size vehicle, not just shuttles, etc. I'll be in St Augustine in a month or so for vacation and its always fun to see if anything is going up during that time.

NED-088 · « **Reply #17 on:** February 19, 2010, 08:26:28 AM »

Quote from: Peter Ferguson on February 17, 2010, 11:58:17 PM

34 Degrees outside!

Quote from: Larry Fulwider on February 18, 2010, 07:56:41 AM

What would Feynman say?

Don't know.
But what I do know is that we hardly ever have that temperature even at mid day in mid summer....
Three consecutive day's over 30 is a heat wave over here...

frank williams · « **Reply #18 on:** February 19, 2010, 08:35:46 AM »

SRB's now have heaters in the field joint o-ring area. Maintains 75 F.

Frank

John Stiles · « **Reply #19 on:** February 19, 2010, 09:25:24 AM »

Quote from: Bill Heher on February 19, 2010, 05:23:32 AM

John / anyone

If you want I have a hi-res shot taken last year showing launch complex 39A / B with a shuttle ready on each pad. This was for the Hubble Repair Mission - they had to have a back-up on the pad in case of damage during launch to the primary orbiter. Last time there was ever 2 operational shuttles on the pad at the same time.

Thi pic file is too big to post- drop me an e-mail and I'll fwd a copy to anyone interested.

Here is a 975kb copy- the original bit map is big enough that you can zoom in and read the name Atlantis on the near one.

That's also an awesome pic, Thanks Bill

john e. holliday · « **Reply #20 on:** February 20, 2010, 10:21:35 AM »

Great videos and pictures of it all. I am jealous of you fellows that get to work with the program. I have a question tho, "How come when pictures are taken up there I can never see any stars in the back ground when the shot is towards space?"

EddyR · « **Reply #21 on:** February 21, 2010, 05:11:16 PM »

Same reason you can't see stars in the daytime on earth. They are there buy the sun light is to bright. Daylight exposure ,shutter speed to fast to capture the dim starlight. On earth if you have a super dark front block the sun you can see the stars during the day.

Ed

tom_weedman · « **Reply #22 on:** February 21, 2010, 08:37:45 PM »

Quote from: Steve Fitton on February 19, 2010, 07:55:50 AM

Something I just thought of, is there a website somewhere that lists scheduled launches out of the cape-launches for any size vehicle, not just shuttles, etc. I'll be in St Augustine in a month or so for vacation and its always fun to see if anything is going up during that time.
[/Steve make sure you bring your plane so you can fly at our new site in ST Augustine
TOM WEEDMAN

Bill Heher · « **Reply #23 on:** February 21, 2010, 09:49:04 PM »

Quote from: Steve Fitton on February 19, 2010, 07:55:50 AM

Something I just thought of, is there a website somewhere that lists scheduled launches out of the cape-launches for any size vehicle, not just shuttles, etc. I'll be in St Augustine in a month or so for vacation and its always fun to see if anything is going up during that time.

Here is a link to Spaceflight now webpage. Launch schedule is a tab under the headline banner in upper left if it doesn't show up down the left margin when you open the link. There are a 3 shuttles, plus a few Delta IV Heavy ( 3 common core boosters - like the pic I posted) some more Deltas with solids, and a couple the Atlas 5, plus the Falcon 9- a commercial / private launch vehicle.

The Falcon program is pretty interesting- Google it if you want to see a glimpse of the future of commercial space launch.

http://spaceflightnow.com/tracking/index.html

john e. holliday · « **Reply #24 on:** February 22, 2010, 08:51:25 AM »

Thanks Ed R., now you need to tell the so called experts that say the moon landing was staged. They say it is because you can't see the stars in the background. I too would love to see a launch some time other than on U-tube and TV.

Jim Pollock · « **Reply #25 on:** February 22, 2010, 12:22:08 PM »

Gee,

The last completely dark night launch I observed was a Proton Rocket taking of in Baikonur Kazakahstan on June 9 2003.

Jim Pollock

EddyR · « **Reply #26 on:** February 22, 2010, 06:19:34 PM »

John The moon landing was all a fake. I had a chance to see the Lunar Lander simulator at Binghamton NY airport being built by Link. I said to a friend working on it that they could do a fake landing right here in the hanger.

He said that is what they were going to do

Now you know the truth

Ed

Steve Fitton · « **Reply #27 on:** February 22, 2010, 06:39:21 PM »

Quote from: tom_weedman on February 21, 2010, 08:37:45 PM

Quote from: Steve Fitton on February 19, 2010, 07:55:50 AM
[/Steve make sure you bring your plane so you can fly at our new site in ST Augustine
TOM WEEDMAN

I'd love to bring it, but, it won't fit in the car with all my wife's stuff

EddyR · « **Reply #28 on:** February 23, 2010, 06:16:05 AM »

I am going to be in Florida ,Tampa Bay area, the end of March first of April. Lets have a big fly in somewhere central Florida. TBLF field maybe? I may need to borrow a plane as not much room in wife's car.

Ed Ruane aka EddyR