Brotoro

I have seen the comet in both morning and evening sky today. Here's some evening pictures: We had trouble with clouds. I spotted the head with binoculars when it was still fairly light out, but then it went behind a cloud that just followed it down for a while. But it finally came out the bottom of the cloud. Nikon D-90, 300 mm, ISO 1600, f/6.3, 8 second exposure: And below here's another 8-second exposure with an airplane flying through the picture... Below is a 30-second exposure, trying to get more tail. And another airplane photo-bombing: And next we have a comet-set sequence (30-second exposures)...

It has been quite cloudy here recently, but this morning I got pictures of the comet. It has moved quite a bit since the 7th, and the tail direction has shifted. The sky conditions weren't as good on the 14th. Here are two comparison shots at the same scale (and a Moon photo for scale reference). Both are 8-second exposures (Nikon D-90, 300mm lens, ISO 1600, f/6.3).

Here's some pictures I took on the morning of July 7. The Pleiades, Moon, and Comet NEOWISE all at the same scale (full 300mm zoom of my lens). The comet looks really good through binoculars. It's visible naked eye if you know what to look for...but much better in binoculars. Nikon D90, ISO 1600, f/6.3, 300mm lens. Comet exposure was 2 seconds.

Would a single relatively small parachute in the nose of a Starship be a good backup method of ensuring that the ship can turn over before landing burn in case of aerosurface malfunction during descent?

Why would you want that antenna tilted at all? Or do they just want to avoid having it become a bird bath after it rains?

SkySat deployment was visible...1 and 2...

And ship video stayed on for the booster landing. Nice. Good orbit!

Falcon 9 in startup. Looking good. And we have liftoff! Successful staging. Interesting ‘fireflies’ coming off the booster. Must be the lighting, but I’ve never seen that before. Very interesting view of heating of the rear of booster. good entry burn. Of Course I Sill Love You is in dawn light

I watched the swarm of Starlink satellites from the most recent launch again as it came over at 5:00 AM. The sky was getting lighter by the minute as I waited, but I was able to spot the swarm in binoculars when it rose above the trees to the northwest. Since they were moving slower that low, I was able to try counting them, and got something close to 60... but it was difficult again because the satellites were not overly bright (not the predicted magnitude 2.0). They got as high as 65 degrees altitude (last night they were only 40-something), and as they passed through the Summer Triangle they began lighting up at a couple points along their path as the sunlight apparently glinted off each of them in rapid succession as they went through the spots between Vega and Altair. So they didn't so much look like a string of pearls (like I normally see), but more like a gold chain that flares at certain points as it is dragged along. Impressive. It was hard to estimate the size of the swarm, since it was only easy to see the chain at the flare spots...but it seemed closer to 20 degrees rather than the 40 degrees I estimated last night. I think the satellites must be all in about the same orientation in order to flare like that at certain spots on the path, and they may be dimmer than previous satellites when they aren't flaring. Definitely this swarm has a different appearance than what I've seen with previous batches of Starlink satellites.

I watched the Starlink swarm from the most recent launch pass over (at about 9:08 PM), and it was difficult to see well naked eye because of the nearly-full Moon lighting up the sky (which was not all that dark to begin with). It looked more like a streak of tiny sparkly debris about 40 degrees long, rather than easily distinguishable satellites. But in the binoculars, the satellites were individually visible, closely packed, and many of them glinted quite a bit as they caught the light just right. I hadn't seen a previous pass that looked quite like this one before.

Hey, we finally got to see the release of the stack. Nice.

Great launch. Great landing. Great day!

OK... I'll admit I'm more interested in the upper stage than stage one landing today.

Go, baby, go!

Did they announce a name for the spacecraft? I thought they were going to announce on launch day...but were they planning to announce AFTER launch?

You will not go to space today.

Bob and Doug's Excellent Mission.

Is NASA's contract with SpaceX not a matter of public record? I presume if NASA is paying full price for the booster with the understanding that it gets thrown away if there is bad recovery weather, it should say something about that. But if SpaceX gave NASA the option to take a cheaper booster price in exchange for the option to delay for booster recovery reasons, it should say that.

Well, that was very disappointing. The big group of 40 that went high overhead at about 8:30... we only saw three of them as they each flared briefly. The sky was brighter than yesterday, but I could see the Big Dipper stars, so I should have been able to spot the Starlink satellites if they were as bright as yesterday's bunch. But just a few flares. And the bunch of 19 that were such a bright parade yesterday... When they went past tonight at about 9:04, I was able to see several of them with binoculars, but they were way too dim to see naked eye (at least with the streetlight interfering). It must depend a lot on the orientation of the satellites relative to the Sun. I wonder if the big group is oriented differently from the 19? And the 19 were much more backlit today, I guess.

And tonight should be better. The larger group (41 satellites) is coming higher overhead...although they will be earlier (8:29 PM), so the sky will be lighter. And then the group of 19 will come by at 9:04, but they will be down at 30 degrees or so in the south. It's interesting that they separated into two groupings like that. Also, predictions are for clearer sky.

We watched a group of Starlink satellites from the recent launch go over. I saw 19 objects about as bright as the Big Dipper stars that they were parading through, about 60 degrees max altitude, starting at about 8:47 PM. I couldn't see any dimmer ones in the gaps with binoculars. Nice parade.

Huzzah. I still enjoy a good landing.

Finally! A lot of last second translation goin' on there. But it's great to get to see it at last.

Good job, SpaceX!

Looks like a nice pass of the latest batch of Starlink sats will happen at around 6:00AM tomorrow morning, and the weather is clear. I guess I get up and have a look-see.