While waiting out a long hold due to lazy thunderstorms that were lingering too close to SLC-41 to safely launch United Launch Alliance’s Atlas V set to carry the US Space Force’s payload designated as USSF-12, I grabbed a few interesting shots from the nearby launch pads.
SpaceX launched a Falcon 9 at at 5:04 p.m. EDT (2104 GMT) on June 29, 2022. The payload was a television broadcasting satellite Wednesday for SES. The Falcon 9 booster landed on a drone ship in the Atlantic Ocean.
A lot of friends, family and people I have met on the Internet often ask me for advice on what sort of camera they should buy so they can take “good pictures.”
It’s a complicated question, and the best answer is to start by examining your goals as a photographer as well as the budget you’ll be working with. Someone who is going to travel a lot and take casual photos of their experiences along the way will have different needs than someone who wants to shoot wildlife or rocket launches. On the other hand, portrait photographers have different needs than serious landscape shooters. All of us have a certain amount of money we can devote to a camera, lens(es) and accessories like a good flash.
Some gear is better suited for video, while other cameras are best at stills. For example, I’d never take a GoPro to a fashion shoot, but I would wouldn’t take a medium format studio camera whitewater rafting either. Fortunately, there are cameras that do both things pretty well and these days there’s a lot of choices out there.
Professional photographers obviously have very different needs and standards than someone who’s a casual amateur or even a dedicated hobbyist. With that in mind, I think there are three classes of photography equipment: amateur, prosumer and professional, with costs going upwards with each step. This article is geared towards the amateur and lower-level prosumer.
I’m going to assume here that you want more than a pocket camera with roughly the same specs as a flagship cellphone — they take decent photos, but will never compare to the capabilities of a high-end DSLR or mirrorless camera no matter what the cellphone makers tell you.
Per Spaceflight Now:
Three launch pads: on the left in the background, SpaceX is raising a launch tower for Starship. Center, Artemis-1 on its launch pad. Right, in the background, is where SpaceX launches its Falcon-class rockets, including astronauts into Earth orbit.
Three days, three launches: with a distant thunderstorm as the backdrop tonight, SpaceX boosted a voice and data relay satellite into orbit for Globalstar. This was the view from Bennett Causeway in Port Canaveral.
SpaceX launched a Falcon 9 booster B1060 for a record-breaking 13th time Friday from Pad LC-39A from the Kennedy Space Center in Florida at 12:09 p.m. EDT (1609 GMT). It placed hauling 53 more Starlink internet satellites into orbit.
I took part with Dr. Subrata Ghoshroy, a researcher at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in a discussion about the current state of international space cooperation on TRT World, a Turkish news outlet. Moderated by Ms. Ayse Surbecker, it was a pleasant experience all around.
I’ve been on television before, but not in a long time and never remotely via computer. It was an interesting and fascinating experience.
SpaceX launched an Egyptian communications satellite toward a geostationary orbit June 8th from Cape Canaveral. It was the first commercial launch of a geostationary payload in 2022 as the market shifts towards lower-orbit satellites.
Falcon 9 rocket blasted off at 5:04 p.m. EDT (2104 GMT) from SLC-40 at Cape Canaveral Space Force Station in Florida.
As seen from Bennett Causeway:
Back in the days of landline POTS telephony (plain old telephone service, without data) six people died annually in the US while talking on the phone in a thunderstorm. That’s right — half a dozen folks met their end getting zapped by their telephone in a storm. The Old Wive’s Tale from the time was true. Of course, now that most everyone’s phone is wireless that’s a thing of the past, but there are still a lot of wired networks all over the world that use “outside plant” by necessity. The power grid, for one, but there are others. And they are all at risk for lightning strikes that can carry into your home or office and have rather…unpleasant…consequences.
In my younger days, I spent my time in research and development laboratories, first doing fiber optics applications with medium powered lasers, then later, in regular telephony materials research. One of the areas of focus my team worked on were low cost novel materials for lightning protection down phone lines, including on the side of homes where the telco networks interfaced with the customer’s premises wiring. There was a device called a NID, short for network interface device, where the lines joined. And there, we were working on a resettable lightning fuse that would short if a certainly energy level was reached and then reset itself automatically.
You must be logged in to post a comment.