First (and last) Night Shuttle launch!

Well, we barely made it over to the space coast to see the shuttle go up... we had about 5 minutes to spare, which didn't give me enough time to get the tripod out and test the camera... the first picture I went to take was horrible... the auto focus on the camera couldn't focus on anything. The whole sky lit up when it went up.


So then, I put it to manual and I couldn't even focus it... so I just took pictures anyway. I'm quite bummed that they aren't perfect... but ah well. And then there's the part about the condos on the background... they were right in the way. Maybe next time... I'll get better pictures under pressure! This picture is without a flash to light up Jerry & the babies. I can only hope that Jerry's cousin Tony doesn't see these pictures... he's actually a photographer for NASA... he'd be really horrified at my attempts! :-)


Here's a picture with the flash on the foreground. The shuttle is the top ball of light. The moon is directly to the left of Jessa's head. It was a really pretty night for the launch.

Then I managed to get the tripod to hold the camera and get a self timed picture of all of us. The moon is peeking out behind Jerry's head and the shuttle is the little light above to the left of us.

We ended up parking in some parking lot and running out with the camera and the babes and then after the shuttle got up, we left. Phew... a lot of driving (over an hour there and over an hour back...) for 5 minutes! They said this was the last night launch of the shuttle... not sure if that means last launch ever or not. Jerry and I were lucky enough to see the 1st or 2nd night launch as kids... I was in 7th grade and he in 8th grade and we had to go twice b/c they cancelled the launch the first time. Pretty cool to have seen about 25 years ago...