SpaceX Falcon 9 Twilight Launch

[Jeremy Perez]

Friday night, a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket launched a group of Iridium satellites from Vandenberg AFB and put on an awesome twilight show across the southwest US. There was about a day's advance notice from Brian Webb's Launch Alert Newsletter. I drove up to the top of Mount Elden, 2400' above Flagstaff, for a good vantage toward Vandenberg 500 miles away. It's been over 12 years since I've seen a twilight launch this spectacular, and this one beat everything I could've expected.

I'm going to try posting some of shots here, but I'm not sure if the forum likes displaying my images these days. If not, these and others are all over at my blog with the full story: Belt of Venus—SpaceX Falcon 9 Twilight Launch.

Views of the expanding exhaust plume






What appears to be first stage RCS thrusters pulsing away

 

[Jeremy Perez]

Okay, so it's possible...just possible that images might be showing up now.

Thanks @Mark Blue and @Steve Miller for your help!

 

[Marc R. O'Leary]

This is amazing!

 

[Mark Blue]

I’m afraid they won’t last for long, but we’ll definitely get it fixed tomorrow as I’ve called our server consultant for a look/see as to why they keep disappearing after a couple of hours.

 

[Tony Zamberlin]

Wow!