On March 6th Mack and I took the journey down to Cape Canaveral to view the launch of the Kepler mission. This one was particularly cool due to what its purpose is:
“NASA space telescope designed to search for Earth-like planets orbiting other stars. Using a space photometer developed by NASA, it will observe the brightness of over 100,000 stars over 3.5 years to detect periodic transits of a star by its planets (the transit method of detecting planets)” [source: wikipedia]
Since we were new to the whole space launch viewing deal we pretty much arrived in Cocoa, FL and checked into our hotel room, ate, then tried to figure out where one went out viewing those new-fangled launches. First we ended up in a private neighborhood and, fearing getting shot, we moved on and headed onto Cape Canaveral to see if there were signs pointing VIEW LAUNCH HERE to help us out.
Only to end up at the security gates of the restricted area of Kennedy Space Center.
Honest mistake (you can tell since the security guard had those directions down SOLID) and after being pointed the right way we went around bumbling and mumbling and trying to find anywhere with a view. How did we figure out a place? Mack took a random turn and went down a bunch of random streets where, hurrah!, we found public parking and access to the beach. After marking the place in our phones so we’d be able to get back we ventured to Target so I could buy myself a tripod and we were SET.
And here are a few of the results:
I think the best part was the drunk older women behind us who made fun of me for having a tripod (“oh fancy pants with the tripod!”) and almost had heart attacks when the thing flew over us (“it’s going over us! IT IS GOING OVER US!!!”). You can vaguely hear them in the video I took (and hear me being thoroughly impressed).
You can view the rest at my launch flickr set for it (including Mack’s shots!) and also see the pictures of our trip to the Kennedy Space Center on the glorious day known as my birthday.
Tonight Tomorrow we are taking the trek down once again to Cape Canaveral to view the launch of Discovery. Wish me luck as I take more photographs to share.
Technorati Tags: cape canaveral, NASA launches, space launches, kepler mission, kepler launch, launch photography, kennedy space center, space, space exploration
