Some Days You’re The Bug, Some Days You’re The Windshield

From the Port St. John Boat Ramp, located just off of US-1 in between Cocoa and Titusville: I’ve taken some really good night-time streak shots here, and wanted to check it out for a daytime launch, mainly because it’s just off of US-1 and really convenient.

Launch day was iffy from a weather standpoint: a cold front was slowing passing through the Space Coast region, and the ground winds were on the upper ends of SpaceX’s safety limits. After a delay in the morning to the afternoon to let the winds die down, the range was green. Skies were mostly cloudy, with thin, broken clouds showing gaps of blue.

Launch

The rocket lifted off perfectly and on-time at 1:51pm local time, and was another mission well executed. If only the photographer (me) had done his job that well!

The photo above is…okay…but it is not really anything write home about. I’m still chasing down a noise issue somewhere in the camera, and my fear is that it is just a characteristic of the sensor and firmware that I am going to have to live with. The only cure? A better camera. That will happen eventually.

The real issue, however, came from the site itself. As you can see below, there is a power pole that is perfectly situated on the line from the piers to SLC-40 out on CCSFS. After liftoff, that made itself glaringly apparent:

No worries, lesson learned and now I know what this doesn’t make anyone else’s list for launch viewing sites. It’s different for United Launch Alliance shots, because SLC-41 is at a slightly different angle. For SpaceX SLC-40 viewing, especially for photography, I would recommend other places.

As I mentioned earlier, there were a lot of clouds in the sky, and the best photos were made when Falcon9 was briefly visible in the gaps in between them.

At the end of the day, however, I got to see another rocket launching to orbit, and that’s nothing but a Good Thing™.