Hi All (Mods please move to a different gallery if this is not appropriate but I can find no other gallery suitable)
On Sunday 18th October 2009 I was out shooting a lightning storm and turned around and noticed a strange shape in the sky. Having watched the night skies my whole life I knew this was something out of the ordinary and I immediately swiveled the camera 180 degrees away from the storm and started capturing images of this anomaly. I took a total of 13 images but have posted only 3 here. The next morning I processed the images and sent them out to various astronomer friends and got back a reply quite quickly explaining what I had seen and captured. These images are of a Centaur rocket fired earlier in the day from VanDerBergh Airforce Base in California carrying a payload of a US military weather satellite. At the time the rocket and satellite appeared over South Africa the rocket dumped excess fuel creating these beautiful glowing halo's you see in these images. A number of UFO lovers have refuted the explanation and choose to believe it was a UFO, I kind hoped it was one myself but the explanation and all the data I have seen is quite plausible. These images were featured front page on South Africa's biggest news paper and on the front page of the biggest online paper news24.com. The images have circled the globe a few times already and I am still being bombarded with enquiries for their usage on talks, displays, books, newsletters and more. A number of people tried to photograph the event, most ending up with blurry images, I was luckily in the right place, the right time and have quite a bit of experience with astrophotography and it seems I'm the only one who captured crystal clear images of this. From the time I first saw it to the time I took my last shot was around 6 minutes, I did not have any time to scratch my head on this one. The manufacturers of the rocket have also been forwarded my images and are equally in awe. Being an event that is not often something we see in the night skies I thought FM members would enjoy seeing them.
To answer a question that has been posed to me a few times in the last 2 days. The images are NOT manipulated, they came out of camera with the blue tinge, to the naked eye they were more whitish but I know from past experience with astrophotography that what the camera sees and what our eyes see, especially at night, differs substantially.
Very cool story, Mitch. Congratulations on these captures and recognition. These photos are spectacular. Bet you get some glorious skies to shoot down there in South Africa.
One question on these photos, and the 6 min. exposure. Was the camera in one position the entire time, or was it rotating?
Wowser, Wowser!! Incredible shots, Mitch!!
It's one thing to be 'right-place-right-time' lucky..... another thing altogether to know what to do with it. Excellent work.
Just stunning, I have never seen anything like this before and your expertise in this field really paid off, as well as being at the right time at the right place. Hopefully your efforts and stunning images will lead you into early retirement on some ocean front house relaxing and sipping away on a cocktail . Congrats on the great captures
That's cool.
I used to see there contrails in the evening sky when they would shoot off test rockets from there, but nothing ever like this!
Great capture!
Um...speachless...you have some winners on your hands for sure.
You will have to walk a fine line to maximize how much you get for these shots...too much and they walk away from you...too little and you have done yourself an unjustice.
But played right....the shot "Catch Of The Day" brought Thomas D. Mangelsen over a million dollars over several years. Not saying your going to get that much...but it does tell you what proper managment of the image will do for you.
out of interest, do you know why the fuel is forming circles rather than just coming from one spot?
Ed
That's what I was wondering... Why isn't this more inline? Very bazaar. Great capture, and incredible to see. It just seems too perfect, too organized to be nothing more than a random fuel dumping.
