Something special in the western sky tonight... I just don't know what it was!

[sharptrack2]

Around 6pm tonight I was travelling home from Morisset, after a photoshoot and noticed what I thought was Venus slightly clouded over, but further observation proved it was not.

It appeared to be a point of light with 3 cloudy trails emanating from it. By the time I could get off the freeway and try to capture an image it was fading away, and camera wouldn't do what it was told to... :(

Was this a rocket launch or something similar?

Oh, was about 50 degrees altitude and an azimuth of around 260 degrees, To the left of Venus but slightly higher.

[nebulosity.]

It was the Delta IV rocket, launching the Parker Solar probe.

Just saw it too, got some pictures. Pretty exciting!

Jo

[skysurfer]

In the west ?
Then you were probably somewhere in the North Atlantic Ocean, NE of Florida ?

Its flight path is over the North Atlantic which is almost the other end of the world from Australia.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DDy1lrWWeao at 36:00.

A few minutes later there is an interview with Parker himself, he is 91.

[glend]

I watched the Parker Solar Probe launch live on NASA TV and, with respect Kevin, there is no way that you could have seen the launch at around 6pm local time, it actually occurred at around 5pm. Yes it had three Delta boosters strapped to it but it was launched from Florida and they were separated after boost phase, east of Florida over the Atlantic. You may have seen the relight of the second stage, after the coast phase, to boost the orbit, the timeline is about right for that. I believe the second stage engine was a single nozzle type, but thruster activity would be happening for course correction. Still, pretty hard to see thrusters firing from earth at that distance. You could watch the replay on NASA TV and maybe work out the timing overhead from that. Perhaps you saw the three boosters re-entering the atmo and burning up, but two would have likely come down long before the central one, which burned much longer.

https://www.nasa.gov/nasalive

[sharptrack2]

I thought of that and dismissed it pretty quickly since I knew the solar probe had already launched.

I might have another look at the probe launch, but like you guys, I doubt seriously if we could have seen anything quite so distinctive from where we are.

:shrug: I guess I was just throwing it out there to see if anyone else saw it... maybe get confirmation it actually was there! :P:lol: (I swear I wasn't drinking but we were out near the mental hospital... :question::rofl:)

[sharptrack2]

Just saw your post Jo!

Would love to see what you got, verify against what I saw.

[h0ughy]

well? had no idea

[sharptrack2]

Cross referencing you post H0ughy... this is what I saw...

http://www.iceinspace.com.au/forum/showthread.php?t=169178

Mystery solved for now.

[orestis]

I can confirm I saw something strange myself and consulted the forums to check if anyone else had seen something. I was observing with an 8 inch dob from the Southern Highlands south west of Sydney around 7pm local AEST.

I saw this strange nebulosity with the naked eye located approximately 2 degrees north west of star Pi Hydra. I used an Eyepiece with 46x magnification. I observed a bright central plume surrounded by a ring of more nebulosity in one section branching off. It was a large structure about the size of the small Magellanic cloud.

Thank you for posting, I was curious what I was observing. Hopefully my observations make some sense regarding the launch orbit.

Thank you
Orestis

[orestis]

Thank you David for that wonderful image. Almost exactly as I saw it. So cool !