Cocoa Beach, Fl March 15, 2009
The beach creatures were waiting for the launch of space shuttle Discovery. Ed was there to witness the spectacular departure of STS-119 for the International Space Station. The shuttle leaped off pad 39A about 12 minutes after sunset into a clear Florida sky and made it to orbit at a 51 degree declination 8 1/2 minutes later. Pictured above is the trail left by the shuttle's solid rocket boosters (SRB's). As you can see part of the exhaust has a reddish hue because it's lit by the setting sun; the portion to the right is extremely bright because it is high enough to be lit by direct sunlight unobscured by the earth's atmosphere as seen below.
The beach creatures were waiting for the launch of space shuttle Discovery. Ed was there to witness the spectacular departure of STS-119 for the International Space Station. The shuttle leaped off pad 39A about 12 minutes after sunset into a clear Florida sky and made it to orbit at a 51 degree declination 8 1/2 minutes later. Pictured above is the trail left by the shuttle's solid rocket boosters (SRB's). As you can see part of the exhaust has a reddish hue because it's lit by the setting sun; the portion to the right is extremely bright because it is high enough to be lit by direct sunlight unobscured by the earth's atmosphere as seen below.
The view from Cocoa Beach was awesome. The shuttle was visible in Ed's binoculars until about one minute prior to orbital insertion. Clearly visible was the main engine cutoff and the fall away of the SRB's. For more information about the launch visit .. http://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/shuttle/main/
Below is the official launch picture published by NASA.
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