A group of us were out at the TAAA observing site , TIMPA, near Tucson
last night for one of the twice a month TAAA club nights (4 from TAAA, 3 from
Phoenix), and we watched it for a long time. Way back in the late 1980's
in the Air Force, I was part of a group developing laser anti-missile
technology, and imaged the first ten ground test launches of the new at that
time
Trident D5s. We were using a green laser to hit the plume and move it up
to the first stage hard body. At TIMPA last night, we watched events
through a couple of hand tracked refractors and it looked exactly like those
ten
above ground launches. In the scopes, we could see how the navigation and
stabilization was working on the bus after the system went exoatmospheric.
WAY cool. It was a test launch from the USS Kentucky off Point Mugu.
http://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-34759177
Jim O'Connor
South Rim Coordinator
Grand Canyon Star Party
_gcsp@tucsonastronomy.org_ (mailto:gcsp@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx)
In a message dated 11/7/2015 8:55:58 P.M. US Mountain Standard Time,
Jimmy_Ray@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx writes:
Saw it as the 1st stage plume was coming above the horizon all the way
through either third stage ignition and burn (most likely) or thought
some
form of SRB sep through upper stage burns. As you stated, I have never seen
a staging plume expand so big, bright or fast. Was unreal and covered a
very
large portion of the western sky. Was able to shoot some cell phone video
from just after second stage ignition.
Jimmy
-----Original Message-----
From: az-observing-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
[mailto:az-observing-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx] On Behalf Of Dan Heim
Sent: Saturday, November 07, 2015 7:25 PM
To: az-observing@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
Subject: [AZ-Observing] Re: Vandenberg launch?
Saw it here in New River, about 30° up and due west. Ironically, just
returning from seeing "The Martian". Wife asked if that was the Moon behind
the clouds. I said no way, as it's close to new moon. Was quite bright with
a central roughly circular white glow surrounded by a more diffuse "coma"
that had a diameter close to 60°. Figured it had to have been a Vandenberg
launch, but I usually get word of those ahead of time on this list. Must
have been a classified mission and unannounced launch. Still, of all the
launches I've seen, never saw a display that large. -Dan Heim On 11/7/2015
7:20 PM, Brian Skiff wrote:
Looks as though there was a rocket launch, presumably from Vandenberg
close to 7pm MST.
It got quite bright, and was noticed by the crowd on Mars Hill tonight
for the public viewing.
\Brian
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