I spent the morning in the digital media lab scanning film. After a very slow start (I’d forgotten how to use the software!) I scanned both rolls of film shot at the STS-130 and SDO launches. Naturally, I selected a few of the best shots and posted them to flickr. All three were shot using a Mamiya 645 Super with either color negative (first two) or color slide film (last one).
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As I noted Wednesday, I have gotten a lot of feedback and communication on my APOD picture. One in particular came from Kevin Woller (woller.kevin gmail dot com), a geophysicist who ran the photo through the ERMapper and used a “shaded relief” technique to bring out the shockwaves in the image. Very cool how the technique really makes the individual waves more visible. Thanks to Kevin for sending the images and allowing me to post them.
Also, in a separate analysis Geoffrey Forden at Arms Control Wonk investigated the source of the shockwaves from various features on the Atlas V rocket. Ten or eleven separate shockwaves are visible which are identified with corresponding features on the Atlas V. I’m not sure if it’s totally accurate or not, but it seems plausible.
In case you missed it yesterday, a picture of mine from the Solar Dynamics Observatory launch was the Astronomy Picture of the Day (APOD):
APOD: 2010 February 23 – Exceptional Rocket Waves Destroy Sun Dog
It was very cool to see the picture on APOD. I got a decent amount of feedback and contact from people. Lots of it on twitter but also a few emails. There was also a healthy discussion of the cause of the shockwaves on the APOD discussion board.
I just got back inside from watching the Hubble Space Telescope (HST) overhead as it orbited the Earth. It passed over Charlottesville and was visible from the reflection of the Sun’s light off the satellite. I was able to watch HST as it moved across the Southern sky.
As a nice coincidence for the evening it was followed a few minutes later by an Iridium Flare. Sadly, incoming clouds made it difficult to see, although I think I caught it as it was fading…
I found out about of these events via tweets from the @overcville account. The service is provided by orbiting-frog.com which has twitter accounts for a variety of locations. If you’re on twitter, should should check it out. And if there isn’t one for your location, you can request one. It is handy for notifying you of upcoming
For a more complete list, heavens-above.com will show you passes of more objects (satellites, comets, spacecraft, etc.) based on your location with charts showing their location in the sky. The only downside is that you have to remember to check it 
This week I was fortunate enough to witness two launches: the space shuttle for STS-130, and the Solar Dynamics Observatory. I’ve already posted some pictures from STS-130 (linked above).
As with STS-130, the SDO launch was scrubbed on the first day. After going through the whole 1 hour launch window on 10 February, the winds were consistently too high (above 20 knots). We thought we were going to be able to launch at the very end of the window and even came out of the hold at T-4 min. Sadly, winds went above the limit after just 1 second! So, it was scrubbed for 24 hours.
We tried again today. The launch window was from 10:23 – 11:23 and the winds were looking better today. There was a slight worry about clouds, but they didn’t prove to be an issue.
After yesterday’s scrub we were all anxious to see the rocket launch today. The weather is forecast to be bad tomorrow (rain, rain, rain) so Saturday would have been the next chance. During the scheduled hold at T-4 minutes, we heard that the weather was go and they were aiming for launch at the beginning of the window!
At 10:19, the countdown resumed to much cheering an excitement. Aleya was jumping around in anticipation as the clock ticked down. With 10 seconds remaining, the crowd helped things along: “9… 8… 7… 6… 5… 4… 3… 2… 1.. 0!”
The Atlas V was launched without booster rockets so the initial acceleration was slow. It seemed to take an agonizingly long time for the rocket to move… Finally, (it seemed!) the rocket was well on it’s way.
As the rocket picked up speed we followed it skyward. It continued climbing upwards, heading for a cloud and a sun dog. We were then treated to an amazing sight: the shockwave from the rocket’s supersonic travel rippled outwards through the cloud, destroying the sun dog:
Video of the event was captured by Anna Herbst, and hosted on spaceweather.com (.mov movie file). Very cool, I highly recommend watching it.
After blowing through the cloud, the rocket began creating a visible contrail behind it, snaking skyward.
We kept watching until we lost view of the rocket, well on its way to orbit.
I had a fantastic weekend as part of the group of twitter correspondents selected to cover the launch and associated events. It was an excellent group of people and we had a great time witnessing the launch of a much anticipated satellite. For some basic info on the goals of the Solar Dynamics Observatory, see the SDO website or this nice summary by Nicole, the Noisy Astronomer.
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