The space shuttle Atlantis taking off on the final ever flight of the space shuttle programme. Taken from the NASA causeway using a Canon 400mm f/5.6 with a x1.6 teleconverter I rented out for the occasion.
I've never seen a launch before so I guess this was a good one to go to! It's awesome to see with your own eyes.
While I'm in Florida I only have a netbook with me with a very poorly contrasted screen so it's hard to select and edit photos accurately but hopefully this image still looks good on properly calibrated monitors! I thought about using an image of the shuttle right as it launched, but there are already a few of those on here and I love the vapour cones in this shot.
Statistics
Place: 12 out of 99 Avg (all users): 6.6528 Avg (commenters): 7.8889 Avg (participants): 6.8868 Avg (non-participants): 6.5165 Views since voting: 1779 Views during voting: 362 Votes: 144 Comments: 24 Favorites: 6 (view)
Oh, what a fabulous, historic photo. This is one you will be proud to own no matter how it did in the challenge -- but I'm glad it did so well. Its really good!
Thanks for sharing your historic moment with us. I live about 100 miles from the Cape, and applied for the causeway tickets as well, but missed out in the drawing. I was not able to go up for the launch, and probably would not have, due to the low probability of launch with the weather.
You were very fortunate in many ways to have all the elements line up for you to be there and to be equipped to get this shot. I was pretty bummed that we could not see anything at all from here, though I have photographed several of the shuttle launches from here. I was there for the first launch in 1981, and we waited three nights for the "go for launch" moment.
With the vapor cones, this is one of the best "not NASA" photos I have seen of a shuttle launch. One of my friends, Bill Cantrell, sets up cameras for NASA launches at the cape. I will show this to him.
Congrats on an awesome experience, and on having an excellent story and a keepsake like this one to show your grandkids.
I guess this tells how many DPCers look up once in a while. :)
Great image, thanks so much for sharing this and including space exploration with this historic image. And don't fool yourself, this is also about the photographer... it always is. I'm sorry it got voted down, way underrated imho.
Thanks everyone for your fantastic comments, scores etc. I'm glad so many people have enjoyed this image and I've gotten to share some of my experience of the launch - whilst omitting the waking up at midnight and 14 hours spent sitting in traffic and queuing for buses =). It truly was great to see and I's incredibly lucky to get causeway tickets, just 6 miles from the pad. I actually booked my holiday around going out to see this. I's also very lucky the launch happened at all, the weather was terrible leading up to it and I think at midnight when I set off there was only a ~20% chance it would go ahead that day. It did, obviously, but with a hold at 31 seconds before launch which had everyone holding their breath =).
I realise my score for this challenge is really about the content not the photographer, since this shot was all about being in the right place at the right time, nothing I did that anyone else on here couldn't, so perhaps the score dropping a lot in the last ~3 days of voting was a good thing, it means the first time I get a top 10 finish I can feel like I've actually earnt it =).
For those that are interested here's the original image:
I cropped it, increased the contrast in order to cut through the atmospheric haze, and then de-noised (as spotted by giantmike).
gorgeous shot. I grew up on the Mercury, Gemini, Apollo missions and when the Shuttle came along it was a dream come true. We envisioned building the Space Station, going back to the Moon and setting up a base. Then about now we would be reaching for Mars.
Great salute to the final launch. I'm guessing you had to de-noise this quite heavily which is why the shuttle looks soft? If that were a tad bit sharper, this could have been much more powerful. Still good.
OK, where do I start.
This has to be everyone's 10. Not only because of the historic significance of the last shuttle flight, or for all the beautiful elements of the picture. But most of all, I'd love to see DPC support and live the dream of space exploration.
If I'm not mistaken, this is the moment when the orbiter enters the "maximum dynamic pressure" region of the atmosphere and the engines throttle down. What follows is "go for throttle up", when it blasts full speed into orbit. I love that you caught this particular moment with the mist around the SRBs. Can't wait to read your story about this photo.
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