First the celestial. After dark right now, the 14% illuminated waxing crescent Moon is just a bright sliver up there next to really bright Jupiter to its upper left and really, REALLY bright Venus to its lower right.
The two sorta bright stars side-by-side above the moon are Castor and Pollux in the constellation Gemini.
An hour earlier, right at sunset, SpaceX launched out of Vandenberg and I wasn’t sure if it would be dark enough to see the rocket or not. It was close, but I was able to follow the exhaust plume for a couple of minutes.
It was pretty easy to follow with binoculars, but the iPhone camera didn’t pick up as much detail because the contrast between the plume and the background sunset sky was very low.
But for the briefest of moments, I was able to capture both the rocket plume (just to the left of center and just above the tree) and the crescent Moon (upper right corner). Not too shabby!
We Love The Stars Too Fondly 