Contains:  Extremely wide field
SpaceX's Falcon 9 soaring toward the Milky Way!, Behnam Darvish
SpaceX's Falcon 9 soaring toward the Milky Way!, Behnam Darvish

Equipment

Loading...

Acquisition details

Loading...

Description

The Falcon 9 rocket, carrying a constellation of 15 Starlink Satellites, is soaring toward the heart of the Milky Way! It is a single unguided 20-second exposure taken at Lockwood Valley, CA, nearly 90 miles (~ 145 km) from the launch site. It was taken at around Nautical twilight, 9:15 pm local time, approximately 5 minutes after liftoff. The bluish hue of the dusk sky, the reddish glow of sunset on the right near the horizon, the greenish mixture of airglow and light pollution near the horizon, the subtle glimpse of the Milky Way, and the vibrant glow of the rocket's gas plume all contribute to an interesting array of colors in the picture.

I have made a timelapse video of the launch. but unfortunately Astrobin does not support movies. Instead, I have included a link to the mp4 timelapse. Note the fascinating change in the color of the gas plume. The residual red hue persisted in the images for nearly 40 minutes after the launch. 

I used a Canon 6D at iso 800 and a Rokinon 14mm lens at f2.8 here. Processed with GIMP for some level and curved adjustment and color saturation. Used RawTherapee to do some vignetting correction.

Comments

Histogram

SpaceX's Falcon 9 soaring toward the Milky Way!, Behnam Darvish