Contrails in the Morning Sky (Rocket Launch?)

            As I was driving home from an astro-photo session this morning I noticed some very strange contrails in the eastern sky just before sunrise. I first saw these glowing clouds at around 6AM PDT but it's possible that they were visible well before that time (I left my observing site a little after 5AM when it was still fairly dark). I didn't have an opportunity to stop and take pictures until around 6:30 and what I show here is a fairly accurate representation of what was visible at that time. This is a narrow-field panorama created using three overlapping photos taken with a Nikon D5100 DSLR (ISO1600, 1/50 second) and an AF Nikkor 50mm 1:1:8D lens set to aperture f2.8.

This image is best viewed in the Flickr light box (press the "L" key to toggle the light box and optionally click on the "View all sizes" menu item to see the image at its largest size).

I was unsure as to the cause of these contrails until I saw a news report that there had been a rocket launch at Vandenberg AFB earlier that morning (just before 3AM on October 28, 2011). The odd thing is that these contrails appeared in the eastern sky which is just opposite of what usually happens with a launch at Vandenberg. I guess it is possible that high altitude winds pushed the clouds to the east of the launch site, but I also read that about one hour after the launch the second stage of the rocket underwent a re-ignition to boost the satellite into a high polar orbit. These contrails ran north/south so that fits with the orbit, but I have no way to confirm whether these clouds were from the original launch or from the boost to high orbit. In fact, they may not even be from the Vandenberg launch (could these just be from a very high-flying airplane?).

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Taken on: October 28, 2011

Tags:

Vandenberg

Vandenberg AFB

contrail

Nikon D5100

sunrise « less

Sets appears in: • The Sun

Groups appears in: • Astrophotography - Astronomy - Astrophysics • Sunrise, Sunset -- Anything Sun!

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