I have movies of the STS-119 launch

[willpittenger]

Expect me to post them on Picasa when I return to Illinois. A link will be added to this thread. The camera used was an older still camera, with VGA movie mode. The still mode was too slow to take pictures of the launch.

 

[willpittenger]

Almost forgot. My movies are about 30 seconds each with 15 second gaps between them. (Camera limitations. ) I will use Windows Movie Maker to edit them into one single video. I also couldn't reach the launch site (we are staying on the other coast in Sarasota), but did reach the Orlando area (just west of Walt Disney World on US 129). Unfortunately, I was looking in the wrong direction for at the time of launch. It took a moment to look in the right direction. I was also attempting to track the shuttle with my binoculars and the camera at the same time at one point. Later, I was looking through the camera only. I appear to have followed it that way until the shuttle appeared only as a bright star of about 1 pixel.

 

[willpittenger]

Finally, as promised, I have found time to upload the movies. I suggest picking the Complete Video version.

It is here on Picasa.

 

[3488]

Thank you very much & very well done willpittenger.

You captured the plume ascending through the twilight (dark at base, then orange then white with increasing altitude ) into the setting sun extremely well. You were also able to track Discovery pretty well too.

Very well done & thank you very much for sharing.

I have bookmarked your videos.

Andrew Brown.

 

[willpittenger]

No guarantees as to how long the videos will be up. Obviously, something (today's economy) could cause Google to demand money for online space. More importantly, I may conclude (years from now?) that the videos are no longer relevant.

As for the shuttle, I was surprised how long I could see it. Not only did I still see a dot in the sky, but it didn't go over the horizon until after I stopped filming.

 

[3488]

Thanks willpittenger.

Do I have your permission to download your videos onto my RealPlayer account? They are very good videos, I would like to keep.

But only with your permission.

Andrew Brown.

 

[willpittenger]

CC-BY-SA-3.0 is my standard license. So yes within those restrictions, go for it. For that matter, feel free to reencode to OGG and upload to Wikimedia Commons. (That isn't an option here.)

I am about to post links to some stills I took at Mote (an aquarium on Lido Key next to downtown Sarasota) and a nearby state park. Each has a lot of animals in them, most endangered. Look in the Animal forums in Life Sciences for that thread.

 

[qzzq]

Cool stuff, I enjoyed that, so thank you WillPittinger!

Is it perhaps a good idea to have a thread dedicated to user videos of launches or other mission related stuff? There used to be some pretty cool picture theads with contributions from sdc members.