Never bothers me.
Very true. In retrospect I should have realized that it was much higher (and thus moving much faster) than I first thought when the contrail from the second stage flared out so much. The stupid thing is that I work with boosters and I recall someone talking about an upcoming Minotaur launch a couple of weeks ago, but except for being at the launch site for a couple of sounding rocket launches and being at Canaveral for a Shuttle launch, I never actually get to see a launch. :mad:
Anyway, here’s an article from space.com on the launch.
Stranger
I saw that in San Diego last night. It was really really weird.
All I know is that thing scared the BeJeezus out of my wife and I who were having dinner in Phoenix out on the patio of our favorite place…Everyone in the restaurant was staring at it and then some people actually left.
The first time I saw one of these, it was about 1987 or 1988 and I was with a friend about 25 feet up in the pine tree in his front yard. From my perspective, it looked like a rocket was coming towards us from over the horizon.
I started to think that our position was a poor one if a nuclear blast were to occur , so I said “let’s get out of here!”
My friend wanted to stay and take pictures. They came out great, but I admit the adrenaline was pumping so hard it’s a wonder I didn’t just fall out of that tree.
I viewed from San Diego and I got a view similar to the last photo shown on the space.com site. I have a question about it. I believe that the portion of the trail visible on the right is reddish because it is lower in the atmospere and not so illuminated by the setting sun as the higher portions of the cloud. Being lower implies it is from earlier in the flight. This implies that the missle is moving to the left and away from the viewer of this picture. Look now at the curlicue on the left. As it turns counter-clockwise it seems to pass in front of the rest of the path. This implies that this (later) part of the trail is closer to the viewer than the earlier part shown behind it. This is inconsistent with the trail moving away and to the left.
Anyone have an explanation?
I don’t find any numbers online about the Streak payload orbit but the space.com article mentions that it is in a solar-synchronous polar orbit, so it would be flying roughtly due south. Owing to the Earth’s rotation it would appear (from the perspective of a ground observer) to be coming slightly west as it ascends, but I think the perception that it is coming toward the viewer is an illusion caused by the gain in altitude and the wider dispersal in the upper atmosphere of the contrail. Because the contrail is larger, it looks closer (and may look as if it overlaps) previous sections of contrail.
That’s just my SWAG, though. If anybody digs up actual numbers or flight profile for this thing, I reserve the right to be utterly and incontrovertibly wrong.
Stranger
I saw this from my house in Apple Valley, CA last night. As a SoCal native, I’ve seen at least a dozen of these (as a kid) since the 70s, and usually spaced years apart. My son was coming home from school and called me on his cellphone…kind of freaked out. He thought it was a huge meteor until I looked at knew immediately that it was a VAFB launch. Very neat too watch. Our SDMB Poker Dopers were notified by me (we were battling each other for Poker Supremecy at the time), but no others had seen it. Sucks to be them, I guess.