Falcon 9

[Ron Reefman]

Did anybody else in Florida or along the East Coast get up to watch the Falcon 9 launch at 5:42am EDST?

I saw it from Cape Coral, Florida, about 200 miles WSW of the launch on the opposite side of the state. It was a spectacular sight as the launch was before the sun was up and the rocket was a big red ball of fire, way brighter than any star or planet in the sky. But after a short while, as it was going up, it got high enough that it was up in the sunlight and the bright red light changed into a bright white trail of smoke looking like a wavy fluorescent tube of bright white light. Then the first stage turns around and heads back to Florida and the thin line plume of bright white smoke became a huge ball and the cloud got thinner as it spread. But it was still bright white in the sun while the ground and the sky were still dark and the ball of smoke got to be about 20 times bigger than the almost full moon that was off to the SW in the sky.

I've watched a lot of Shuttle launches and now more than a handful of Falcon 9 launches over the last 20 years. Other than the 2 Shuttle launches that I saw up close and personal, this was probably the next best one as far as visuals are concerned. Shuttles made a bigger, fatter smoke trail if seen during the day and were a bit brighter than the Falcon 9 if seen at night. But the timing was just right as this one launched in the dark and rose up into the sunlight that we really couldn't see yet. Simple spectacular!

Very cool indeed!

 

[Ron Reefman]

I just saw this article online with a little video. From Orlando it was quite different than our view as they were NW of the launch and we are WSW oof it. But it gives you an idea of what it looked like.
http://www.orlandosentinel.com/news/space/os-bz-spacex-launch-friday-20180628-story.html

 

[vector824]

Dang I'm in Melbourne at the inlaws! I would have totally woken up to watch it go. I saw the Falcon Heavy launch in February and it was amazing.

 

[mfinn]

If I lived in the area, I would probably want to watch every single launch.

 

[Ron Reefman]

If I lived in the area, I would probably want to watch every single launch.

That's what we try to do. Many years ago we watched a night launch of the Shuttle from our house in Cape Coral (200 miles wsw). We could see the boosters separate. We sat down and figured out haw far we were from the Shuttle. Between how high it was and how far down range it was, we were something like 400 mile away and could still see it!

 

[bobbyM]

I missed this one too! I need to keep my eye out for these.

 

[Ron Reefman]

The next scheduled launches are:

July 22 between 1:50am and 5:50am A Falcon 9 launch. Sure, I want to be up all night only to have the launch scrubbed at 5:45am! But it is a night launch which should be visible from most of Florida and even up the East Coast.

Aug 2 at 1:19 exactly A Falcon 9 launch. Similar to the one above, but if it doesn't go at 1:19am, it doesn't go any later that night. No waiting for delays.

Aug 4 4:17am to 5:02am A Delta rocket launch. This one could go up and at altitude break into the sunshine at altitude. But on the ground it will be dark as the sun won't have cleared the horizon yet. This one could be very cool.

I took this photo when Columbia went up for the last time. This was the one that broke up on re-entry 2 weeks later.
35mm post launch 03 instant fix email size by Ron Lindensmith, on Flickr

 

[bobbyM]

Awesome! Thanks!

 

[larryl]

Great picture, thanks for sharing.

 

[Ron Reefman]

Anybody interested in trying to follow any rocket launch can get current info for every launch anywhere in the world at this site:
https://apod.nasa.gov/apod/astropix.html

And for those interested in seeing some very cool space photos as well as interesting info if you decide to follow links in the caption under each photo, this is a regular site for me:
https://apod.nasa.gov/apod/astropix.html

BTW, the July 22nd launch is still on the schedule as well as the Aug 2nd and 4th launches.

 

[Ron Reefman]

Well, I was at a Frag Fest event in Sarasota all day on Saturday and forgot to set my alarm clock for the 1:50am liftoff of the Falcon 9 this morning. Darn. Night launches of Falcon 9's are more fun than day launches (at least from far away). The day launches are OK, but in the daylight the Falcon 9 doesn't make rocket exhaust like the old Space Shuttle launches did which was so easy to see from here.

 

[Ron Reefman]

A BIG Delta 4 rocket is scheduled to launch from Cape Canaveral in the wee hours of Saturday morning. Launch is set for 3:30am with about a one hour window till 4:30am.

I've got my alarm set and I've got my fingers crossed hoping for clear skies! :D

 

[Ron Reefman]

OK, so I'm lucky I guess. I forgot to set my alarm clock and would have missed the launch... but it was scrubbed. o_O

So I've already set my alarm clock for tonight (Sunday morning at 3:30am launch) and as an added incentive, there is the Perseids Meteor Shower going on as well. Current projections call for a meteor every 60 seconds on average AND tonight is a new moon so the sky should be as dark as possible.

 

[Ron Reefman]

My wife and I got up at 3:20am and were just in time to get out and see the Delta 4 Heavy launch. We had a mostly clear sky and perfectly clear off to the north northeast in the direction of Cape Canaveral. The Delta 4 burned like a bright orange star going up to between 30 and 40 degrees above the horizon and the started to slowly sink lower as it tracked off to the southeast. Here are some photos that my wife took.

First is the Delta 4 just above the horizon and we get to see it about 10 to 15 seconds after lift off.
2018-08-11 14.28.52 by Ron Lindensmith, on Flickr

Now you can see it's higher.
2018-08-11 14.29.14 by Ron Lindensmith, on Flickr

Still higher and tracking a bit to the right (ESE).
2018-08-11 14.29.42 by Ron Lindensmith, on Flickr

Excuse the slightly blurry images. You can see it's moving more left to right than going up as it tracks off to the east.
2018-08-11 14.30.21 by Ron Lindensmith, on Flickr

And here it's even further off to the east. At this point we had been watching it for 2 or 3 minutes. The Cape is a couple hundred miles NNE from us and at 3 minutes into the flight the Delta 4 is about 400 miles down range. So in total, it's about 5-600 miles away from us!
2018-08-11 14.31.32 by Ron Lindensmith, on Flickr

After the launch we watched for 10 minutes and saw 4 or 5 Perseid meteors. They were all very faint and very brief, but we do have some light pollution in the neighborhood.

 

[Rcpilot]

I just moved to Melbourne (Space Coast) in April 2018. I watch every single launch and they're AWESOME!!!

We're about 8--10 miles away.

 

[Rcpilot]

Here's a launch we saw from Melbroune, FL in April 2018.

I think 2nd stage boosters/engines kick in when you start to see the smoke trail. After that, it accelerated very quickly and then disappeared from view with the naked eye within 15-30 seconds.

 

[Ron Reefman]

Nice series of photos! Being so much closer than we are in Cape Coral, could you hear it?

I've been to the Cape for 2 launches of the Shuttle and the sound, even from 5 and 10 miles away was like you hear on TV. A crackling, rumbling roar! In fact, at the Kennedy Center observation site there is a small lake between you and the launch that is 5 miles away. You see the Shuttle fire up and start to lift off before you can hear it. About 20 seconds after we saw the Shuttle fire up, we could see a wave move over the dead calm lake moving directly from the direction of the Shuttle and headed at us on the opposite shore! As the ripple wave hit our shoreline we started to hear the sound of liftoff. It's an amazing site to see!

The current schedule has a Falcon 9 scheduled for Saturday, Aug 28th at 11:30pm. So a night launch and one I can just stay up for rather than set an alarm in the middle of the night!

 

[Rcpilot]

Nice series of photos! Being so much closer than we are in Cape Coral, could you hear it?

I've been to the Cape for 2 launches of the Shuttle and the sound, even from 5 and 10 miles away was like you hear on TV. A crackling, rumbling roar! In fact, at the Kennedy Center observation site there is a small lake between you and the launch that is 5 miles away. You see the Shuttle fire up and start to lift off before you can hear it. About 20 seconds after we saw the Shuttle fire up, we could see a wave move over the dead calm lake moving directly from the direction of the Shuttle and headed at us on the opposite shore! As the ripple wave hit our shoreline we started to hear the sound of liftoff. It's an amazing site to see!

The current schedule has a Falcon 9 scheduled for Saturday, Aug 28th at 11:30pm. So a night launch and one I can just stay up for rather than set an alarm in the middle of the night!

I could not hear it, but that's not saying much. 90% hearing loss in one ear. My wife can hear a fly fart, but she never said anything about the sound.

 

[Ron Reefman]

I could not hear it, but that's not saying much. 90% hearing loss in one ear. My wife can hear a fly fart, but she never said anything about the sound.

That's funny. I can't hear high pitch sounds. I couldn't hear my watch alarm on my wrist, but my wife can hear it from the next room in the house! And it's the same thing with smells!

 

[Ron Reefman]

Today, Nov 26th, 2018, from 2pm until 3:30pm on NASA TV and a couple of other sites will be covering the the landing of the Insight Mars Lander live. Now I don't think there will be any live shots from Mars, but I suspect they will have some cool simulations to see. And kudos to California as they have 49 sites holding live gathering at libraries, science centers and other locations to watch the event. Texas only has 1 and even Florida, the home of the Kennedy Space Center only has 4 sites. Here are 2 links to live shows you can watch on the internet.

https://www.independent.co.uk/news/...planet-martian-elysium-planitia-a8651721.html

https://mars.nasa.gov/insight/timeline/landing/watch-online/