SpaceX Crew 3 launch
The SpaceX Crew 3 launch, transporting 4 astronauts to the International Space Station. Photographed from the Project Gemini Memorial at Space View Park in Titusville Florida. This launch had been postponed several times. I picked this location for the original launch date. Once I pick a location I try to stick with it. I used this location one other time, but there was heavy cloud cover and the rocket disappeared shortly after takeoff. So I wanted to give this location another try. There was light rain falling as I left the house, not a good sign. The rain was supposed to stop by launch time, but what about the clouds? When I arrived, the moon was covered by clouds. It was looking like I may have a repeat of the previous cloud situation. As launch time got closer the moon and a few stars became visible, I was hopeful. The sky was pitch black and it was hard to see if the clouds were going to be an issue or not. As soon as the rocket ignited it lit up a huge cloud bank! Shortly after lifting off the rocket disappeared into the clouds. A collective “awwwww” arose from the crowd. I waited and waited, it peeked out and was gone again, finally the rocked reappeared, although partially covered by clouds. The clouds are not always bad. A good night launch photo looks better with some clouds. You just don’t want too many. If I try this location again and there is another cloud issue, I will begin to think the twins have a cloud curse. The area around the Gemini Monument was recently renovated. They installed some new LED lights. This is a really dark area and needed some light. From a photography standpoint, the lights created a bunch of crazy lens flairs and a shadow from my lens hood. I took the lens hood off for a test photo, this made way more lens flairs. I kept the lens hood on and dealt with the shadow. Over all I was pretty happy with my image and it was a beautiful launch to watch.
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Predawn Atlas V Launch of the Lucy Space Probe
What a beautiful Star-filled night for a predawn Space Coast Rocket Launch! United Launch Alliance launched an Atlas V rocket carrying the Lucy Space Probe. Lucy will be exploring the Trojan Asteroid Belt in Jupiter’s orbit. After the launch the wind blew the rocket’s contrail into a cool smoke-ring in the sky.
Click on photo to see larger. You will miss all of the stars if you don’t.
After photographing the rocket launch, at Space View Park in Titusville Florida, I stuck around with a few other photographers and a few others that were just waiting for the sun to rise. It was a beautiful light show, a pod of dolphins went swimming buy as well. It was worth the wait!
Click on photo to see larger.
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SpaceX SXM-8 Night Launch
Another awesome Space Coast night launch! SpaceX launched a Sirius XM Radio satellite into orbit. The SXM-8 was sent to replace SXM-7, launched last year. SXM-7, also launched by SpaceX, was successfully placed into orbit but was D.O.A. and was unable to be revived. SpaceX successfully placed SXM-8 into orbit. It will be several days until the health of SXM-8 will be known.
Usually when I do a streak photo of a night launch, I like to get the arc. As a rocket launches, it ascends into the sky. When it reaches altitude it levels off and continues to fly. Due to the curvature of the earth, from the ground, it almost looks like the rocket is coming back down. During a long exposure night photo, you are actually photographing the light from the rocket engines. This makes a streak in the sky, due to the curvature of the earth the streak makes an arc in the sky.
Now, to work out the exposure. A typical rocket takes 3-3.5 minutes to reach orbit. I usually use 3 minutes for my shutter speed for testing my exposure. In real time I will hold the shutter open until I can no longer see the rocket. To work out the f-stop, I do a series of test exposures at different f-stops. The amount of lighting on the foreground will determine the proper f-stop. When the foreground is exposed properly with a 3 minute shutter speed, that’s the correct f-stop. In this case it was f-16.
This launch had two issues. The first was trajectory, the rocket was flying due east. From Titusville it was flying directly away from the camera. So no arc, it would look like it was just going straight up. The second issue was cloud cover. Shortly after launch the rocket was going to go behind the clouds. Once again no arc, no matter what direction it was flying. Normally I use the widest angle lens I have, my 24-70mm at 24mm. Knowing the rocket was going to go behind the clouds shortly after launch, I zoomed in to compress the scene. This sort of, solved both issues to make a pleasing image. Also because the rocket was going behind the clouds, it wouldn’t be visible for the full 3 minutes. To make the exposure correct I still needed to keep the shutter open for the full 3 minutes. In this case I actually opened the shutter 1 minute before liftoff.
I photographed this launch from the newly renovated Rotary Riverside Park along US 1 in Titusville. The park had been destroyed by a hurricane a few years ago. It had just been reopened a few days earlier.
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SpaceX Starlink L21
SpaceX Starlink L21 from the A. Max Brewer Bridge in Titusville Fl. I didn’t frame this photo correctly. The plan was to be able to see the rocket coming up under the bridge. I wasn’t paying close enough attention after a repositioning and missed the target. I will try this one again sometime.
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SpaceX Starlink L19 Night Launch
SpaceX launched another flock of 60 Starlink broadband internet satellites. I stayed close to home this time. I took this photo from my driveway in Titusville Florida.
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SpaceX Starlink L18 Night Launch
Another flock of SpaceX Starlink satellites launched into space last night. Photographed along the Indian River Lagoon in Titusville Florida. If you follow the dock to the horizon. The small light is another SpaceX Falcon 9 ready to launch at 5:14 am!
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SpaceX Turksat night launch
The first Space Coast rocket Launch of 2021. SpaceX launching a Turkish telecommunications satellite into orbit. Photographed from Kirk Point Riverside Park in Titusville Florida.
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Apollo Moon Mission Memorial, Full Moon Photo
I have been following photographer Hudson Henry for a while. Hudson has been doing a live Zoom/YouTube session called Office Hours. The subject of the last episode was shooting a full moon. You can see the recorded session here. Hudson Henry Office Hours Hudson and a few of his friends discuss how they photograph the moon. On August 1st the moon rose about an hour before sunset. This provided an opportunity to photograph the moon while the foreground is still illuminated by the setting sun. The moon wasn’t quite full yet, but it is the best night to photograph the moon before sunset. Not only will the foreground still be lit, but the moon and the foreground will be similarly illuminated. So the moon and the foreground will have similar exposure values. Normally after sunset the moon is much brighter than the foreground. This makes it very difficult to balance the exposure for the moon and the foreground. So either the moon is overexposed or the foreground is underexposed. That’s why this full moon cycle is a good one to photograph. So a challenge was set for everyone watching Office Hours to photograph the moon on August 1st. Hudson will be showing and talking about everyone’s photos on the next Office Hours on August 4th. So I thought it would be fun to give it a try.
The best night for photographing the moon is Saturday August 1st. Enter hurricane Isaias, expected to hit Titusville Florida when? You guessed it, August 1st! I did some planning, using The Photographer’s Ephemeris to locate where the moonrise would be. I was able to determine that the moon would be rising just behind the Apollo Moon Mission Memorial. I thought the Apollo Memorial would be an appropriate moon subject. I wanted to do a practice run first. So I went out Friday night July 31st, to give it a try. With Isaias on the way, it could be my only chance. My results on Friday night were less than stellar. I did learn a few things though. Moonrise on Friday was two hours before sunset. This proved to be too early. The sky was still too bright; the moon looked small and dim. The monument was still in some pretty harsh light as well. The other thing was focal length, I needed a longer lens so the moon would appear larger. Being a starving artist, I only have two lenses. My main lens is a 24-70mm. It’s a great lens. I use it all of the time! For this photo of the moon though 70mm was not quite cutting it. My other lens is an old Sigma 50-500mm that I break out once in a while to photograph birds at the wildlife refuge. I didn’t bring the Sigma with me on Friday. I hung around until sunset hoping for a decent sunset photo. The sunset was not so great. There were some interesting clouds, but no color.
Hurricane Isaias was moving through the Caribbean on its way to Florida. Luckily Isaias weakened and slowed down. Isaias wasn’t predicted to make it to Titusville until Sunday August 2nd. With Isaias a few hundred miles to the south, Saturday night was a beautiful night to photograph the moon. Using my Sigma lens at 135mm I was able to get good composition with the moon a bit larger than before. If I were to do it again, I think I would try to get farther away and use maybe 200mm. The sky was a bit darker so the moon contrasted against the sky better. The monument was lit by nice warm golden hour light. I used ISO 100, f11, my shutter speed ranged from 1/30 to 1/6 of a second. I was much happier with my results from Saturday. In the end, Isaias moved offshore and never really made it to Titusville.
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Comet Neowise
Comet NEOWISE visible over the Indian River Lagoon in Titusville Florida. NEOWISE is a newly discovered comet. It was just discovered this past March. It was discovered by the NEOWISE space telescope (Near-Earth Object Wide-field Infrared Explorer). The comet is visible from just after sunset until about 10:00pm. In Florida anyway, I think it’s visible later farther north. NEOWISE is low in the north sky just under the Big Dipper. The comet is pretty dim and hard to find without binoculars. Once it’s located with the binoculars, you can see it with the naked eye. NEOWISE will be visible until July 22. Happy comet watching!
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SpaceX Dragon Crew Capsule Demo 2 Launch
Florida’s Space Coast is launching humans into space again! After a scrub due to bad weather, SpaceX launched two astronauts into space. Demo 2 is a manned test flight of the SpaceX Dragon Crew Capsule. Demo 1 was an unmanned test flight of the SpaceX Dragon Crew Capsule. Astronauts Bob Behnken and Doug Hurley successfully docked with the International Space Station 18hrs later. They will spend several months working on the space station. After finishing their duties, they will board the Dragon and test the re-entry and splashdown capabilities of the Dragon Crew Capsule.
My main objective was to document the spectators that came to see this historic launch. I visited several of Titusville’s launch viewing hot spots. It’s very interesting to see how people come prepared to watch a launch. Most of them had been here for hours. A lot of them had tables and chairs and a pick-nick lunch. The big thing today was umbrellas. There were big ones and small ones. Umbrellas of every color of the rainbow. We were having small light showers, with bright sunshine in between. The umbrellas were keeping everyone in the shade and dry.
Photographing spectators is much different than photographing a launch. So I was not equipped to get awesome photos of the launch. I did take a video of the launch. You can hear the roar of the crowd cheering as the rocket lifted into the sky. Unfortunately I can’t post it here.
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SpaceX Dragon Crew Demo-2, 1st attempt on May 27th.
SpaceX Dragon Crew Demo-2, 1st attempt on May 27th. I went around to a few of the popular Titusville launch viewing locations to take some photos. I took these photos between 11:30 and 12:30. The launch time was 4:33pm. The east side of the Max Brewer Bridge was pretty full and filling fast. Sand Point Park was still pretty open. I wasn’t able to get to Space View park, but the parking areas were pretty full. All of the popular spots along US1 were pretty full. I stopped at the new Kirk Point Riverside park across from El Leoncito. The parking was full but there was still plenty of space for watching. Parking on side streets was available. El Leoncito was open as well as having an outside takeaway taco bar and a Kona Ice truck. So Kirk Point not only has a great view of the launch but refreshments close by! I was a little early and the weather was not great, although there were a lot of people, I was expecting more. I think the weather may have been a factor. I have to admit that I was pretty sure of a no go due to weather. So after I took these photos I went home and stayed home. I do plan to visit more locations for the Saturday attempt. I really enjoy getting around to watch all of the people that come to see launches. I like to see all of the equipment that people bring with them, from just an umbrella to a motor home. All types of cameras and all types of lenses. Telescopes from tiny to huge. There were people from all over Florida and the country. It’s almost better than the launch. I’m hoping for much better weather for Saturday, although rain is in the forecast. Fingers crossed!
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Failure to Launch
First, the rocket launch was a total success. It was my image of the launch that was a failure. The other night Space X launched a Falcon 9 rocket on a resupply mission to the ISS. Night launches not only make great photographs, but they are really cool to watch. You can watch the glow of the rocket engine all of the way into space. Photographing a night launch is very tricky. You only get one shot, literally one image. So if everything doesn’t come together, the photo is a failure. Photographers always like to share our amazing images that were a success. I think it’s also important to talk about the failures.
When you photograph a rocket launch at night, the idea is to use a long exposure. As the rocket climbs into the sky during the exposure, it makes a light trail through the image. It makes a really nice image. Using the cameras bulb mode, when the rocket ignites (trust me, at night, there is no question that the rocket has ignited) you open the shutter. As the rocket rises into the sky, you keep the shutter open until it goes out of sight, approximately 3 minutes. When it works, it’s awesome, when it doesn’t it’s not. This time it didn’t work.
The other part of the image is location, location, location. The rocket launch is really pretty on its own. To make the image even more interesting, I like to add something else. This can be either a silhouette of something interesting or something interesting that is illuminated added into the frame. A reflection would be great as well. For this launch I chose the Exploration Tower in Port Canaveral, Florida. It is several miles south of the launch pad. The tower is a unique structure that was designed to look like a sail. At night the tower is illuminated and stands out really well in the night sky. The tower is also lined up with the launch pad. If you line everything up properly the rocket makes an arc over the top of the tower. I looked up some launch photos from this location, so I knew where the rocket would be in relationship to the building.
The next hurtle is getting the correct exposure. The shutter speed is fixed at the duration of the flight of the rocket, approximately 3 minutes. This makes the aperture very important. Rocket engines at night are very bright. If your aperture is open too far the rocket will overexpose. If your aperture is too small the rocket will be underexposed. Typically I end up at f18, this works most of the time, especially for the rocket with a silhouetted foreground. When you add an illuminated subject this makes things more difficult. A 3 minute exposure will severely overexpose an illuminated subject. To overcome this I used a neutral density filter. After testing different apertures with a 3 minute exposure, I found that f11 and a 4 stop ND filter at ISO 100 exposed the tower properly. The rocket exposure would fall where it may. The important thing was to expose the tower correctly.
So what went wrong? I don’t really know for sure. To get the 3 minute exposure I needed to use the bulb setting. I made many test images that all worked perfectly. I was there with a fellow photographer friend, Chris. We also wanted to photograph the tower before the launch, so we arrived pretty early so we had some time to do that. After my final test shot, I didn’t touch my camera until the launch. We finished up a little early, so quite a bit of time passed between my last test and the launch. We had been talking with another photographer from Orlando. I think maybe something timed out and I was no longer in bulb mode or my remote switch may have timed out, I don’t know. The viewfinder indicated that I was still in bulb mode, but the shutter would open and immediately close. It was very frustrating to say the least. Several colorful words were going through my head. By the time I corrected the situation the rocket was over half way through its flight. At about 8 minutes before the launch, a voice in my head was telling me to do another test photo, I didn’t. If I had, I would have encountered and corrected the problem during the test. I will be doing that in the future. Once I got the shutter to stay open, I left it open for approximately 3 minutes. The rocket was still going so even though I wasn’t going to get the whole light trail. I wanted to see how my image would have looked if everything had gone as planned. The rocket flew right where I wanted it to be and the tower was properly exposed. I will need to try this one again.
I also made a mistake when I was photographing the tower before the launch. It makes me crazy because I have made the same mistake several times in the past. I am not a very technically disciplined photographer. I tend to concentrate more on the subject and composition. Sometimes I get so wrapped up in that and I forget about the technical side of things. Apparently the last time I used my camera I was using ISO 800. I never checked the ISO, I wanted to be using ISO 100. Once again my little voice was asking me, “Roy, why are your shutter speeds so fast?” I should have been smoothing out the water more. I was almost done when I realized what I had done. ISO 800 probably helped the shadow areas. If I would have used ISO 100 I would have been able to control the highlights better and I would have smoothed out the water with a slower shutter speed. I always promise myself that I will remember to check the ISO, and/or remember to return it to ISO 100, but every once in a while I forget. These are some of the things that make photography a challenge.
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A full morning of photography
Space X did an interesting launch today. They were testing their Crew Capsule Abort System. The last step towards an actual manned flight. Basically they launched a rocket, then blew it up. They wanted to make sure the crew capsule would separate and splashdown safely. My favorite place to watch a rocket launch is from the A. Max Brewer Bridge in Titusville, Fl. I got there early for the 8:00am launch to photograph the sunrise. That worked out well. The launch was pushed back to 10:30 due to rough seas in the splashdown zone. Sometimes good things come to those who wait. At that time of the day, from that location, the light is horrible for photographing launches. So I did not plan on photographing the launch. I really wanted to watch this one anyway. The rocket launched at 10:30. I had a great view of the rocket until it went behind some clouds. I thought that was the last time I would see the rocket. Luckily there was a hole in the clouds. Just as the rocket went into the hole, it blew up! It’s not every day that you get to see a rocket blow up on purpose. Very cool launch! After the launch there was a car show at Sand Point Park. So I photographed some of the cars. It was a full morning of photography.
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Satellites are getting smaller and rockets are getting larger
Last night SpaceX launched a Falcon Heavy rocket from Kennedy Space Center in Florida. A normal Falcon 9 rocket has, 9 powerful Merlin rocket engines. A Falcon Heavy is three Falcon 9 rockets strapped together! SpaceX has been continually tweaking it’s Merlin engines. This Falcon Heavy is the most powerful rocket flying today. Boy was it powerful! This rocket was Space Shuttle loud. You could hear the rumble building as it got closer and closer. The sound started to reverberate off of the buildings, then the sound waves hit, you could hear and feel the rumble! It was awesome! The reason for all of that power, the Falcon Heavy was carrying 24 assorted satellites into space. Advances in technology have made it possible to build smaller satellites. This allows rockets to carry multiple satellites into space on the same rocket. Not only is this more profitable for companies like SpaceX. It should also be less expensive for satellite users. Night launches are always beautiful, and this one was no exception. Oh yeah, I forgot to mention, this launch was at 2:30 AM! It was worth getting up early to see it though. A very strange phenomenon happened during the launch. Looking through the binoculars, as the two Falcon 9 boosters strapped to the side, separated, the glowing engines and vapor, created an image that looked very much like Voldemort’s dark mark in the sky!
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SpaceX Starlink Launch
SpaceX launched a Falcon 9 rocket carrying 60 Starlink satellites. Although the satellites were small, it was the heaviest load a Falcon 9 has lifted into space. The satellites are the first of up to 12,000 satellites that will make up a blanket of satellites that will provide a space based internet connection. Technological advancement or space pollution? Astronomers are already complaining, satellites are impeding viewing of the stars. Only time will tell.
The launch took place at 10:30pm. Night launches are awesome to watch. They make a really cool photographic subject. But also watching a launch at night is really beautiful. The flames from the rocket engines make all sorts of interesting shapes and colors. On a clear night with a pair of binoculars, you can follow the rocket all the way into space.
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SpaceX Dragon Crew Capsule Test Flight
SpaceX sent their new Dragon Crew Capsule on a test flight to the International Space Station early this morning. Night launches are always great to watch and photograph. luckily they all aren’t at 2:49 am! If this test flight goes well, SpaceX hopes to start sending astronauts to the ISS later this year.
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Rocket Launch at Dawn
An excellent photo opportunity has presented it’s self. SpaceX has scheduled a resupply mission to the International Space Station, launching right at dawn. There was a really good chance 45 minuets before sunrise, there could be some really nice color in the sky. I could not pass this up, I had to give it a try.
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SpaceX Falcon Heavy Test Launch
Today was a beautiful day to watch a rocket launch! This was no ordinary launch. Today SpaceX performed a test launch of the new Falcon Heavy rocket. The SpaceX FH is capable of launching some very heavy things into space. So what heavy thing did the FH lift into space on its maiden voyage? If you’re Elon Musk, you launch your Tesla Roadster into orbit around Mars. Complete with a dummy astronaut (dummy so he says, has anyone seen Elon?) hanging his arm out of the window, blasting David Bowie’s Starman on the stereo.
Rocket watchers from far and wide gathered early to watch this historic launch. I don’t think we got quite to Space Shuttle crowd sizes, but I think it was close. Maybe we should get 45 to review the crowd photos. There were some very relaxed and prepared people in Sandpoint Park. I wanted to get a photo of the huge crowd at Space View Park but there were no parking spaces close by. The Max B Bridge was jam packed. This is my favorite launch viewing site. I like to call it “Titusville’s launch viewing platform.” We had some time to kill before the launch. Due to high winds, the launch was pushed back almost to the end of its 2 ½ hours launch window. After a long wait, the FH ignited its 27 Merlin engines and lifted off of Apollo/Shuttle now SpaceX Falcon Heavy Launch Complex 39A. It was an amazing launch! The 27 Merlin’s really rumbled!
The FH is basically 3 Falcon 9 boosters strapped together. The plan was, to bring all three boosters back to earth, to be reused on another flight. Two of the three boosters had previously flown on F9 missions. The two outside boosters were to land back at KSC. The third booster was going to land on a barge in the Atlantic. It was amazing to see the two boosters bound for return to KSC simultaneously igniting to slow their decent. They ignited a second time and gently landed on target. Once again we heard the rumble of the rocket boosters landing, preceded by sonic booms. The third booster didn’t fare so well. Only one of three engines reignited to slow its decent and it was lost. All in all, a fantastic sight to see and hear. There is nothing like watching a live rocket launch!
Launching a Falcon Heavy, $90 million! Watching live video of a Tesla Roadster with Starman drop top orbiting the earth, PRICELESS!
roy thoman photography 