Rocket Launch at Vandenberg AFB
Rocket Launch at Vandenberg AFB
So social media went nuts last night over what apparently turned out to be a Trident missile launch. It's fun to capture missile launches when they're announced ahead of time. This is Lori Hibbett capturing the NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory OCO-2 (Orbiting Carbon Observatory 2) satellite shortly after launch in the early morning hours of July 2, 2014.
This 15 second exposure starts around 4 minutes, 40 seconds into the OCO-2 satellite launch last July, as the cover is jettisoned off the satellite, the Delta II's first stage cuts off and the second stage ignites. I was shooting with three cameras at once, one capturing a time-lapse sequence of several hours at wide angle, another shooting live video, this one my Canon 5D Mark III with a 70-200mm lens at 70mm to get more detailed shots of the rocket than the wide angle time-lapse would capture. As the rocket headed south, I realized that it was moving toward where Lori was shooting, so I decided to make it a portrait of Lori shooting the launch. Leaving this camera also mostly shooting on it's own using an external intervalometer, I was able to focus on live video using a Canon 70D with 70-300mm lens, its crop sensor providing up to 480mm effective focal length. I had my iPhone tuned in to the NASA live launch broadcast for sound, providing a running commentary on the event as it unfolded. I was also able to later associate each shot with exact events during the launch. I discovered for example that I had clearly captured in my photos the three solid rocket boosters separating from the main rocket.
It was a fun experience. I hope that I will be able to shoot another launch in the future!
Here are more of my photos from the rocket launch:
https://www.flickr.com/search/?user_id=23183960%40N00&sort=date-taken-desc&text=Vandenberg&view_all=1
I uploaded a video to YouTube as well, and posted it on my blog:
http://www.jeffsullivanphotography.com/blog/2014/07/04/nasas-oco-2-satellite-launch-yesterday/
#rocket #launch #California #nightphotography
Jeff Sullivan Lori Hibbett Looks like you guys had a lot of fun :-)!
ReplyDeleteDaniel Schwabe Definitely. We were supposed to be 2 miles from the launch, but with heavy fog it made sense to head further away and up into the hills to get above the fog. I hope to shoot another launch from the closer viewing site.
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