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The 10/2/99 Minuteman II launch turned out to be an ideal viewing opportunity for anyone within approximately 300 miles of Vandenberg Air Force Base. It took place at precisely the right time, 5 - 10 minutes after sunset, and under nearly ideal weather conditions.
This launch was a test of an ICBM defense system. The Minuteman carried a dummy warhead (and at least one inflated decoy). An interceptor missile was launched from the Marshall Islands about 20 minutes later, and impacted the warhead 10 minutes after that, 140 miles above the Pacific.
Although the launch trajectory was to the west, this launch was spectacularly visible at least as far as San Diego to the south, Tucson to the southwest, and Las Vegas to the west. (I've even received a report that the rainbowed exhaust trail was sighted as far away as Cortez, Colorado!)
The vehicle climbed into the sunlight, and its exhaust trail lit up bright white. As it climbed above the atmosphere, even though it was hundreds of miles away, the expansion rate of the exhaust was amazingly apparent, especially at staging.
Here are some of the reports, photos, and videos provided by Sky Lights followers:
Very nice---very pretty---very illuminated and right on time.
Will be on everyone's "News at Eleven".
Someone should get great pictures out of this.
Dave Close
Central valley of Ca.
sfquake06@thegrid.net
Russ,
It was visible from Las Vegas....until I fell from my vantage point on a
two foot wall :-) Broke my cheapo bino's. From what I could see it was very
bright white with some blue above. It was very low, behind a house so I could
not see very well.
Vic Panegasser
Henderson,NV
36 03n 115 03w
I was told it was on national tv.
I walked down to Santa Monica Pier (LA area) to watch.
Start was obscured by marine layer, but it quickly climbed
out. Many people on pier had XLNT view. Nice colors for about
20 minutes. Also, some people came out
of a sports bar, USC game onTV, said they had seen it on the TV.
Thanks willyk52@aol.com 10.02.99 20:01
Indeed it was great from here in LA, multicolored rainbow crescents and a
huge aura. It was one of the prettier launches I've see, wish I'd driven up
there now!
Ahh well, next time, seems there's a lot happening at V'berg this winter
luckily.
All the best,
Andrew
Thanks for the heads up - we saw it very clearly here in Tucson.
The cattle did too - they were totally unsettled!
'Can't wait for the next one...
Kurt
WOW! That was quite the launch. Still an
eerie trail brightly lit up in the clear
autumn sky. Since the Marshalls are so
near the equator, I suspected this Minute-
man would have a bit of a southerly trajec-
tory, and it did. Saw it from western
Huntington Beach all the way to MECO.
I think you'd be hard pressed to find
anyone who *didn't* see this one. <G>
Neil <orac@megsinet.net>
We were on the North side of the base near an access gate, the Minuteman
appeared from behind a small hill. It was incredibly bright and loud. As it
gained altitude it left a very vivd red, white and blue trail. It certainly
made the drive to Lopoc worth it.
Ron Röhrenbacher
Pomona, CA
The Röhrenbachers also provided Sky Lights with some spectacular still and video photographs:
RRohrenb@aol.com
Photo of M-II launch, first stage burn (photo by Bryan Röhrenbacher) |
Photo of M-II launch, second stage, rainbow exhaust (photo by Bryan Röhrenbacher) |
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First stage burn (photo by Ron Röhrenbacher) |
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Second stage burn, some rainbow effect (photo by Ron Röhrenbacher) |
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Third stage, above the atmosphere, exhaust trail color intensifies... (photo by Ron Röhrenbacher) |
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| Marc and Ron Röhrenbacher have also provided a series of video clips. Try 'em out and let us know what you think.
I've noticed that Windows 95 media viewers don't seem to handle this movie format very well. I get a message about a missing YUV9 decompressor. A friend suggests downloading the latest Windows Media Player, then installing it and restarting your computer. (This didn't work for me, unfortunately. It may only work if you use Internet Explorer.) |
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| clip 1 (1.8M) | clip 2 (1.6M) | clip 3 (1.6M) | clip 4 (1.6M) | clip 5 (1.1M) |
Five friends from the bay area came screaming down here Saturday at the mere mention of a rocket launch, We went down to Guadalupe Dunes Beach about 2 miles north of Point Sal and 4 miles Northwest of the launchsite; much closer than the media viewing area next to the weather station which looks to scale out at about 8-9 miles away (see map).
Low foggy clouds were threatening to cover the whole area, but thanks to my visiting guru, we were able to maintain reasonable visibility until after the launch. The only part we missed was the blast-off which usually is a bright orange. Due to one large dark gray blob sitting right on the ground between us and the launch pad, we didn't even see a hint of a glow. Precisely at 7:01:05, the rocket appeared just over the gray blob and we had a beautifully clear view until it went out of sight. The sound followed the rocket by about 10 seconds.
Jean Noel sent back some selected frames from his camcorder, two showing the firing of the second and the third stage.
We had the entire beach to ourselves, except for several surfers leaving for the day. The demonstrators were over at the main gate of Vandenberg.
Afterwards we drove into Guadalupe to the Far Western Tavern, a 92 year-old steak restaurant, full of people oblivious to the spectacle they had just missed
................JIM DREBERT
Map of VAFB area (by Jim Drebert) |
Photo of M-II launch, first stage (by Jean Noel) |
Photo of M-II launch, second (?) stage (by Jean Noel) |
Photo of M-II launch, windblown exhaust (by Jean Noel) |
Photo of M-II launch, third stage, above atmosphere (by Jean Noel) |
This was the first actual launch, (not just the resulting vapor trail), that I've ever seen. It was spectacular. The rocket exhaust varied in shape from a narrow comet like tail to a wider rounded fan then almost spherical cloud. It was beautiful. We saw the moment when the final burn ended. Just before that something that looked like a spherical shock wave propagated rapidly from the rocket. Shortly after burnout the oxygen above the main vapor trail began to flouresce an auroral green which became brighter and larger in the darkening sky, eventually spreading over Arcturus and much of Bootes before fading out. Meanwhile the vapor trail exhibited the usual, dazzling display of vivid color. A friend had come over for an observing session with my telescope.
After MECO, we turned the scope on the trail and were awestruck by the beautiful colors and lovely turbulent detail in the trail. Stars could be seen glimmering in the multicolored cloud. Some portions of it resembled the turbulent clouds of Jupiter, while other regions were banded looking like a closeup view of the rings of Saturn.
Not long after the launch, we saw the brilliant flare from Iridium 60, high in the southern sky at 19:07. It was magnitude –8.0...very bright.
We saw the Resurs 01 rocket, the Meteor 1-31 rocket, and then Mir at 19:41.
Quite an evening for rockets!
Clear skies,
Dale Larson
Ramona, CA
Image taken by Bill Reinthaler in Bishop, CA.
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