Category Archives: Video

February 2, 2022 · 23:28

Groundhog Day Launch

Well, sorta.

It is Groundhog Day. And yes, as always, we watched the movie. It’s one of my all-time favorites. Sooooooooooooooo much to love on so many levels.

SpaceX did launch out of Vandenberg, 116 miles as the crow flies to our northwest. And the booster came back and landed at the launch site, which was spectacular. Watch the video!

For most Vandenberg launches they take a southerly route off the California coast, and particularly for evening or night launches the booster comes into sight, climbing up over the hill to our west about a minute after launch, and then being visible through first stage shutdown and separation, second stage ignition, and first stage boostback burn, with the second stage sometimes (at night) being visible all the way to the southern horizon where it’s all the way down past Cabo San Lucas.

So today, I decided to go out, climb up on the roof so that I could get a better view, and see if I could do a Facebook Live video to show the world the glory of a Vandenberg launch as seen from the west San Fernando Valley!

That might not have worked out so well.

Yeah. So windy. I had no idea that most of the time the wind noise was drowning out every word I said.

And given that it was a day launch it was hard to see much. Given the Return To Launch Site (RTLS) nature of the launch (as opposed to landing on a drone barge at sea off the Mexican coast) I suspect this wasn’t a southernly launch. (Given the security and secrecy around this launch of an intelligence agency satellite, they won’t be confirming.)

And what you probably can’t hear (I couldn’t when I watched) is that at some point there was a loud crash behind me as the wind blew over the ladder that I had used to get up onto the roof. Oops!

Fortunately, the Long-Suffering Wife was at home and able to lift the ladder back up. All was well.

Except for the fact that we didn’t see the rocket.

Later in the year will be more Vandenberg launches. Maybe I’ll get up to see one in person this year, or maybe I’ll climb up on the roof in the wind and the dark for EXTRA excitement.

Stand by!

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Filed under Castle Willett, Space, Video

January 19, 2022 · 23:04

ALWAYS Make Time To Watch The ISS Fly Overhead

Life’s too damn short. It’s bad enough that we can’t watch rockets take off and land any time we want, not to mention all of that COVID and politics and other nonsense. But when you know that the ISS is flying overhead and it’s nice and clear, stop what you’re doing and go watch!

Of course, you only get to see about half of the pass when you’re out there just starting to record and the pizza guy pulls up and hands you dinner.

Priorities can be emergent and fluid. Just sayin’.

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Filed under Space, Video

January 16, 2022 · 23:14

Playing With Cinematic Mode In A Most Meta Way

The iPhone 13 has a built-in video mode called “Cinematic” and there’s an ad running on TV where it’s demonstrated. I hadn’t looked up any instructions, but figured that Apple products are usually pretty intuitive, so I decided on short notice (the ad had just come on TV) to see if my intuitions were correct.

They were.

While recording the video in Cinematic mode, just touch the screen to indicate where you would like to focus. In this video, watch as the focus shifts from the soda can in the foreground, the KC Chiefs hat behind that, and the television showing the Apple iPhone ad in the distance.

This is pretty cool!

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Filed under Paul, Video

December 27, 2021 · 22:10

Christmas Lights In The Rain

No Comet Leonard tonight for SoCal. But the lights on the ground are still lovely.

The rush is on to the year end. It’s yet another “Nantucket sleigh ride” as we head toward the event horizon of 2022 and beyond.

Yee-hah!!

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Filed under Christmas Lights, Video, Weather

December 20, 2021 · 22:02

I Caught A SpaceX Launch

I’m sure there are tens or hundreds of thousands (or more!) folks in Florida who have hundreds of these, almost as common as catching video of the mail carrier drive by.

I’m not in Florida. This is cool. (And it’s my website, so ppbbbbbbtttt!!)

On Saturday morning, December 18th, SpaceX was going to launch a Falcon 9 rocket with more Starlink satellites out of Vandenberg. We know this can be neat! At first, they were going to launch at about 01:30 or so and I was going to stay up to watch since the skies were clear. Then they switched to a 04:41 launch and I’m an old phart who needs my beauty sleep, so I did not get up.

The launch was successful, the first Falcon 9 to get launched and recovered eleven times. And I got to wondering…

We have a security camera looking at the front porch. It wouldn’t be as good as one of the good mini video cameras or even the iPhone 13 for video quality and it’s not tracking and the roof would cut off the view in just a few seconds. But, still.

Look in the upper left, right near where that arch is on the roof pillar. The neighbor’s house with a bunch of trees is off in the dark and you can really clearly see the Falcon 9 rising in the west.

The zoomed in view.

Takeaways – life is short, I can see the rocket from my front yard, it’s über cool, so make more effort to get your ass out of bed at 04:35 to watch!

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Filed under Space, Video

November 24, 2021 · 23:34

Moments Of Zen

It was windy. A pretty steady 20+ knots with gusts to 30+. The wind chimes were working overtime.

And dry. The hummingbird feeders were empty and Little Bastard was pissed. Every time I went out into the back yard he was buzzing me, reminding me that the feeders were empty. I finally took them down, cleaned them, and put more nectar in them.

After dark the clouds and fog of the past several evenings were gone (of course!) and our three current planetary visitors were still lined up nicely.

For those of you needing an assist to ID them:

Keep breathing, folks.

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Filed under Astronomy, Birds, Critters, Photography, Space, Video, Weather

November 23, 2021 · 23:25

DART Launch From Vandenberg

It’s launch night out of Vandenberg again, but we had a fair amount of clouds and fog forming to our west. We’re about 130 miles from Vandenberg, and if the weather cooperates, we can see the launches very clearly. Tonight wasn’t going to be that night. But I took the setup on a tripod out to the front yard anyway, just in case.

Good move.

It wasn’t as great as when the weather’s “clear and a million,” but it was more than I expected to see!

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Filed under Astronomy, Space, Video

November 19, 2021 · 23:56

Last Night’s 97% Lunar Eclipse

Did you see it?

Here in LA I thought that I might not see it at all, given the clouds that were moving in earlier in the evening, but they were scattered around 23:00 when the umbral eclipse started

But, you deal with what you have been dealt, right? So here’s the first 30 minutes or so of the eclipse from the good camera, shooting thorough the cloud layer about every 6-7 minutes, focusing as best I could (which, frankly, is marginal):

Focus getting worse? Well, yes, because in addition to the high clouds, the fog was starting to roll in off of the coast and out of Ventura County to the west. So it was getting really damp, dew was forming on the lens, and no matter how much I tried to keep it dry and clear, I was getting to this:

Now, I was also running two other cameras including a good video camera, and that stayed clear of dew and condensation another hour or so until the fog completely wiped out the view right around maximum totality at 01:02. I may be able to pull some decent still images off of that. Later. Maybe.

As for the other camera, it was just an old iPhone that I put into time-lapse mode, and that actually turned out sort of cool!

So I gave the photography and video my best shot, but it was what it was. Aside from that, it was (as always!) really neat and interesting to watch the Moon disappear and see a demonstration of celestial mechanics right there in my own front yard!

Did you get to see it?

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Filed under Astronomy, Photography, Space, Video

November 14, 2021 · 23:25

Missing Man Today

Today’s “missing man” flyover pass.

First pass is our CAF SoCal Wing PBJ (B-25), F6 Hellcat, and an F8 Bearcat. (The Bearcat isn’t ours, I believe it’s from the Palm Springs Air Museum, but I could very well be wrong. Ours is in mid overhaul.) It’s the F8 that pulls out of formation overhead.

Second pass are T-6 Texans / SNJs from the Condor Squadron out of Van Nuys.

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Filed under CAF, Flying, Video

October 25, 2021 · 22:12

Yes, We Actually Do That In California

It’s a common meme or urban myth about California folks, but there’s a basis in fact behind it.

Not everyone. Not everywhere in the state. But a lot of folks, in a lot of places.

Yes, rain is rare enough here so that when there’s a good, solid rain shower after a long, long drought folks do stop what they’re doing and go take videos of it and watch in awe.

On the other hand, M3.9 earthquakes barely bother to wake us up, whereas folks from Iowa or North Carolina would need new pants due to the panic.

Pick your poison.

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Filed under Video, Weather