Space shuttle Discovery launch views from Tampa Bay

YOUR LENS:

Apologies for not posting these more swiftly. Here, as promised, are images of Discovery's launch that were sent to our community photo gallery, presented in our large format photo blog. Nice work, thanks for sharing!

This very Florid-esque composition was made by Brennton R. Johnston at Palm Harbor Marina. He writes that his exposure was 30 seconds.

James Houck's image, made in Holiday (Pasco County), was obviously in an area with very little atmospheric light pollution from the ground. The shuttle's streak is sharp and clear against a deep black night sky. The frame originally had a lot more empty sky at the top. I'm guessing that James guessed the arc would extend much higher. I'm also guessing he wishes that he guessed a little lower, to capture the rest of the arc's reflection in the water. Argghhhh! James wrote that his exposure was 3.5 minutes.

Technically, this photo was not taken in the Tampa Bay area, as implied by our headline on this post, but it's nice to compare a closer launch view to our vantage on the left side of the state. This was sent in by Rick Mugavero, who wrote that it was taken from Spaceview Park in Titusville. Do you live here in the Tampa Bay area, Rick? If you're listening, please add a comment and tell us more about making the photo.

If height matters then freelance photographer Wayne Cathel is the winner by miles and miles. I'm guessing the exposure was at least a couple of minutes long. He also gets points for poignancy. Read this information he sent in and you will see what I mean:

STS-128 lifts off Friday night at 11:59PM as seen from Clearwater, Fl. If you look closely you can see Clearwater High School in the background, where astronaut Nicole Stott attended school. Stott (the only female astronaut aboard) is making her debut as a Mission Specialist on this historic mission. Stott will also be one of the last astronauts to be transported to the International Space Station where she will be spending 4 months in space and blogging about her experience along the way.

Finally, this submission from Tim Wilmath, almost not included because of the soft focus. (posted smaller because the softness becomes annoying when the image is large) But the location Tim chose is so good, and the placement of Discovery's streak over downtown Tampa so perfect, it's worth sharing. (I know Tim can take sharp photos because I've seen his name on at least one beautiful image in another of our posts.) Tim wrote that the exposure was 30 seconds at f/8, with the ISO at 200. Maybe Tim can leave a comment and tell us what happened with the focus.

OUR LENS:

Three of our photographers shot Saturday's midnight launch of space shuttle Discovery. The sky over Tampa Bay was clear, did you try your hand at making a photo? Share it with us by submitting it to our community photo gallery. If we get any really good ones, we'll also add them to this post this coming week.

Looking like some kind of meteor (save for heading in the wrong direction), shuttle Discovery begins its mission to re-supply the International Space Station just before midnight this past Friday night. A 1200mm lens with a 2x converter on a Canon 30D camera captured the flight from the photographer's back yard in Palm Harbor. The exposure was 1/30th sec. at f5.6, with the ISO set at 1,000.[DOUGLAS R. CLIFFORD, Times]

Shuttle Discovery's midnight launch from the Kennedy Space Center as seen from Demens Landing in St. Petersburg. The St. Petersburg Pier is at left. The photograph is a 30-second exposure. [CHRIS ZUPPA, Times]

Discovery lifts off from the Kennedy Space Center Friday, just before midnight. The view is from the top of the St. Petersburg Times building, overlooking downtown St. Petersburg. The photograph is a 15-second exposure. [LARA CERRI, Times]

(This post was updated with an additional photo on 8/31/09, and again with more photos on 9/2/09.)

Comments

[Ken Helle]

Nice job Chris and Lara. Two very nice views of the Shuttle launch - very slick.

[Lance Rothstein]

Yes - Magnificent job folks! Thanks for camping out there so I can have this awesome view from my desk.

[Karl]

Tre' cool!

[Chris Zuppa]

Anytime Lance. It was a lot of fun.

[KurtMac]

I viewed it from the 6th floor balcony of our hotel on St. Pete Beach. It was breathtaking, I had no idea the view would be so nice to view from such distance! I would've taken a photo, but was too busy lifting my jaw off the floor. I'm from Illinois, so this is the first time I saw a launch with my own eyes. I had tickets for the KSC Causeway for the launch in Feb. but it got pushed back to March so I missed it. But after this I'm going to NEED to try again and again to get tickets to see a launch from up close before they retire the fleet!

[Wayne Cathel]

Glad to see I’m not the only space nerd setting-up a tripod in the middle of the night! Great work!!

[Tim Wilmath]

I took my photo standing in the parking lot of the Tampa General Hospital. The camera had difficulty locking in the auto-focus since I was aimed mostly at the sky. So I flipped the focus to manual and set it to infinity. Since I was pretty much standing in the dark, I didn't notice that the building were slightly out of focus. Despite that - I was pretty happy with the shot. I'll know better next time!

[S Perez]

Great Pitchers

[M.K.]

James Houck's image was the winner for height, not the excellent picture by Wayne Cathel. The diminished arc continues to the left as the orbiter bends around the curvature of the earth. Beautiful image...shame about the headroom.

[Nancy Neptune]

Thanks for these outstanding pictures.

[Nancy Neptune]

Thanks for these outstanding pictures.

[Nancy Neptune]

Thanks for the outstanding pictures.