It’s been a spectacular few days for rocket launches on Florida’s Space Coast. Friday evening, Nov. 13, 2020, the long-delayed Atlas V finally launched with a spy satellite, and the twilight made for a gorgeous contrail as it headed to orbit. I shot photos from the Cocoa, Florida, waterfront.
Sunday night, Nov. 15, 2020, SpaceX launched its Crew Dragon capsule with astronauts aboard, headed to the International Space Station from Kennedy Space Center. I was lucky to get a spot on the NASA causeway, on the Cape Canaveral side, and got some interesting photographs of the launch. It was hazy and humid, and that humidity was a factor in my hazy streak shot. I decided to embrace the haze, and as I refined the photo in editing, I brought out the color. There were amazing colors in the contrail as the rocket headed to orbit … extraordinary reds and blues … and with some zooming (and later cropping), I caught some wild images. A bigger lens might have been better, but I was still thrilled to capture these psychedelic moments.
This gallery is a mix of both launches. The twilight shots are from ULA’s Atlas V. The darker shots are SpaceX’s launch.
