SpaceX is clearly good at getting satellites into orbit quickly and efficiently, but mostly puts on a beautiful show for the locals and the thousands of viewers watching online. We do, and this launch was no exception.
Launched at 8:26 PM ET, the Falcon Heavy took off under dark skies. About three minutes into flight, the rocket returned to the sun, lighting the exhaust plume a beautiful orange. Following the separation of the sidecore boosters, the Falcon Heavy’s center core continued the show in the upper atmosphere.
Falcon Heavy center core launch after BECO (Richard Angle}
One aspect of Tesla Lati’s coverage of SpaceX launches is capturing images of each launch. Usually set up in the morning before the evening launch, sometimes his 24 hours before the scheduled launch. For this launch, we first set up the camera on the morning of April 27th. Even with the threat of bad weather, we all want to capture the incredible power of the Falcon Heavy. What came next was a bit unusual in an area with multiple tornado warnings, including directly above LC-39A, where the rocket and camera equipment were waiting to launch.
Falcon Heavy rising into the upper atmosphere (Richard Angle)
After bad weather on the first launch attempt, the cameras were allowed to be checked and reset for the next launch attempt. Several tripods including mine were knocked over, it rained all night and my camera stopped working. Thankfully my second camera of him weathered the storms that followed and captured some great images of his Falcon Heavy during takeoff.
Falcon Heavy launch from LC-39A (Richard Angle)
This photo shows a stack of 31 images taken with a remote camera. When the sound reaches a certain limit, the MIOPS trigger sends a signal to the camera to wake it up and fire. Her one drawback to this is that rain can hit the sound triggers, causing them to prematurely activate. During the storm my camera took about 2500 pictures over the course of several days. Thankfully, SpaceX allowed me to leave before each wipe of the memory card, inserting a new battery, and cleaning the lens.
Falcon Heavy streaks in the sky just after sunset (Richard Angle)
Questions or comments? Email us at @rangle1555@gmail.com or tweet us @RDAnglePhotography.
