Evolt rocket launch pictures...

[Raist3d]

An online photographer friend told me about a rocket launch that would happen about 220-250 miles from where I live. I just had to face the west and see it and we had roughly about 20 minutes to get ready for it.

I thought I won't be able to see a thing. I thought it would be maybe a boring distant star.. Boy was I wrong!

Here is a gallery with the pictures in a sequence....

Some explanation- notice the photos are sequenced:

1 - Notice the bright spot and the dark trail. That's the rocket going early.



2 - Still going up



3 - The rocket at this point has left an amazing trail (off camera to the right) and is very bright- creating a cone, widening from the front part



4 - The rocket breaks appart- another rocket and the base rocket. The first part goes on and fades



5 - The trail of the base rocket... the first part of the rocket (off camera to the left) is there but faded



6 - The outcome of the trail of the base rocket, the 2nd rocket smoke is no longer visible.



I used my 50-200mm Zuiko lens with the 1.4x TC teleconverter (100-400mm 35mm equiv times 1.4) for the first four shots.. I regret in a way I didn't switch to wide angle sooner I suppose. The last two shots were made with my 14-54mm (28mm-108mm 35mm equiv) Zuiko lens.. switched in a hurry.

All photos taken from my tripod, from the balcony of my house.

The link to my weblog thread is here:

http://raist3d.typepad.com/raw_consc...photogr_8.html

[mikej]

Nice capture. You didn't say where you took these from. I was lucky to be stationed at Vandenburg AFB in the late 70's and early 80's when they were shooting off a lot of Titan 3C rockets as well as a number of others. Sometimes I was able to be within 5 miles of the launch site and not only watch the launch but feel it. You would think 5 miles is a long ways, but when one of these monster rockets goes off, it felt like an earthquake for miles around the area. I think the most impressive site I had was when I was heading up to the communications site I worked in that was on a hill above the base. This area is famous for it's morning fog and this morning was no exception. As I climbed up the hill I broke above the fog layer, so I was in the sun looking down on the fog. As I was looking out over it, I saw to very bright circles of light followed by two Minuet Men missiles (Vandenburg was a missile test site and where SAC competitions were held) breaking through the fog still twisting and turning as their guidance system was orientating them to wards the Pacific missile range. I sure wish I had had my camera to capture that moment. But I've always loved rockets and watching them.

Mike

[Paul Shields]

These are very interesting. You're right, the last two work well due to the wide angle. Where's all the noise? You're shooting with the notoriously noisy E-300 aren't you?

[hartcons]

Cool.

[Raist3d]

Originally Posted by Paul

These are very interesting. You're right, the last two work well due to the wide angle. Where's all the noise? You're shooting with the notoriously noisy E-300 aren't you?

LOL. Well to be fair, I have always said any resampled down pictures to this size from any camera will look great, but the noise in this case converting from Oly Studio is allright.
But yeah, heaven forbid I shoot with this noisy camera!

- Raist

[Raist3d]

Originally Posted by Mike Jordan

Nice capture. You didn't say where you took these from. I was lucky to be stationed at Vandenburg AFB in the late 70's and early 80's when they were shooting off a lot of Titan 3C rockets as well as a number of others. Sometimes I was able to be within 5 miles of the launch site and not only watch the launch but feel it. You would think 5 miles is a long ways, but when one of these monster rockets goes off, it felt like an earthquake for miles around the area. I think the most impressive site I had was when I was heading up to the communications site I worked in that was on a hill above the base. This area is famous for it's morning fog and this morning was no exception. As I climbed up the hill I broke above the fog layer, so I was in the sun looking down on the fog. As I was looking out over it, I saw to very bright circles of light followed by two Minuet Men missiles (Vandenburg was a missile test site and where SAC competitions were held) breaking through the fog still twisting and turning as their guidance system was orientating them to wards the Pacific missile range. I sure wish I had had my camera to capture that moment. But I've always loved rockets and watching them.

Mike

Mike, I took them from Canyon Country (Santa Clarita). That's about 220-250 miles away from the launch site. There will be more launches so I'll just follow their schedule from now on.

- Raist