CRS-17 by SpaceX

The Force was strong with this one: The #SpaceX #CRS17 #Falcon9, launched and landed (!!!) as seen from the roof of the VAB. Congrats, @elonmusk and team, #MayTheFourthBeWithYou! This was supposed to be a Milky Way composite, but the moisture in the air combined with the rather bright lights around the Vehicle Assembly Building made the shot I had in mind an impossibility. The lights that illuminate the front of the VAB are very bright, so much so that you can see the VAB's shadow in the thin cloud above us (top left of the frame). You can see the cloud of the Milky Way, but it's very faint, and mostly washed out from all the surrounding light. The main attraction is, of course, the launch and landing of the #CRS17 #Falcon9, creating streaks that cross mid-frame. At the top of the streak, you can faintly see the first stage as it turns around to head back to the Cape. The fuzziness in the frame is from the resulting plume, and it was really lovely -- I underexposed it in my tight shot, but Erik Kuna has a fantastic close-up of it. Details: Composite, rocket streak frame was ISO100 and 519-seconds at f18, and the star frame was taken 12-minutes before the launch at ISO2500, 15-secs and f2.8. I should also acknowledge Declan Murphy and his FlightClub.io tool, which was instrumental to planning this shot.