during the day, falcon-9 launches are visible for 100 miles. at night, they can be visible for hundreds of miles, and just after sunset, the backlit plume can be seen from even further away.
having failed to spot daylight falcon-9 launches from my office at 150 miles away and home (175 miles), i was pleasantly surprised to catch this shot through a window at work during relatively bright daylight, 15 minutes before sunset:
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| Falcon-9 1/23/24 5 pm pacific 15 minutes before sunset Long Beach, CA |
that being said, the rocket was unimpressive, not distinguishable from a jet from LAX. 50x zoom with my cellphone showed a trail that looked more rocket than jet:
Later that week...
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| Falcon-9 1/23/24 |
a neighbor a few houses down from ours has a front yard facing a T-intersection. this gives the lowest horizon towards Vandenberg in the area. coincidentally he's a huge spacex fan. i strolled down the street 2 minutes from lift off and there he was on his front steps with the count down going.
caught the rocket rising up much sooner than on previous attempts from his front steps. also it seemed more red on this evening:
Here's a frame from a video as it crossed with it's plume overhead. a very noisy low light capture, i was going to darken and blur the background, bet elected to own the noise and lighten the background, rendering this impressionist image:
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| Falcon Crossing Trees at Night |
lastly here are two short video clips of the launch at night:
image details:
samsung galaxy S22 ultra
1/23/24
daylight images
5 pm pacific, 15 minutes before sunset
Long Beach, CA
1/28/24
Eastbluff, CA
10 PM pacific
