The #FullMoon aka the #FlowerMoon put on a beautiful show for the Space Coast of Florida tonight, seen here from Satellite Beach with a bonus pelican. (Pics: me)

The #FullMoon aka the #FlowerMoon put on a beautiful show for the Space Coast of Florida tonight, seen here from Satellite Beach. (Pics: me)

The #FullMoon aka the #FlowerMoon put on a beautiful show for the Space Coast of Florida tonight, seen here from Satellite Beach. (Pics: me)

This is a test frame with the Lensball from the Tues night attempt to launch the #SpaceX #Starlink rocket. With the second attempt scrubbed tonight, we're going to have to wait "about a week" (per @SpaceX) to see how this frame looks with a rocket streaking through it. (Pic: me/@WeReportSpace)

*ZAP* This was the scene this afternoon as a line of storms started to move over the Space Coast. I happened to have a camera with me and was able to catch this in between meetings. Although, as intimidating as the storm was (is; it’s still storming out), the Lovebugs were a real nuisance. (You can see them swarming around me, the little black spots in the frame.) (Pic: me from just south of the Pineda Causeway.)

This is the #SpaceX #CRS17 #Falcon9 launch of 2:48 am (ET) on Saturday, May the 4th (2019), captured on 35mm film. I was on the roof of NASA's Vehicle Assembly Building, 525 feet high. (In the bottom left of the frame you can see the top of one of the high bay door structures, sticking out of the side of the building.) There are three streaks of particular note in this image; the main one shows the launch of the rocket. And then less obvious is the first of the landing burns, near the top of the arc (cutting across the launch streak), and the final landing burn is just to the right of the pad, capturing the first stage as it descends to the drone-ship "Of Course I Still Love You" positioned 16km or so off the coast. And then we have the special guest appearances: Jupiter (the white line to the right) and Vega (the bluish line just below the top of the streak). For the most part, I've got the streak exposure figured out for 35mm film, but exposing the foreground continues to be a challenge. For this image, I opened the shutter at 2:38 am (10 minutes before launch) and let run for 20 minutes total, but it really could have run for at least another 10 minutes to bring out foreground detail. (I had intended to start it 20 minutes before the launch, but I was distracted by trying to capture an image of the Milky Way using one of my DSLRs; there was just too much light catching the moisture in the air for that.) But, as with my DSLR image, this is a tad underexposed. On a happy note, I have found a lab that will indulge my impatience - normally I wait 5-7 days for slide film to be processed and scanned, but thanks to the Denver Digital Imaging Center, this image was processed and scanned the same day they received the film (today). For a digital version of this image from the DSLR set up next to this camera, visit here: flic.kr/p/25bevu2 Details: 20-minute exposure on Fuji Velvia 50 35mm film, shot at f16 with a Canon Elan7 and a Rokinon 12mm fish-eye lens. The Denver Digitial Imaging Center did the processing and scan. The only digital post-processing I did was to crop it slightly (in the original, I caught some red from one of the FAA lights on the top of the VAB).

The Force was strong with this one: The #SpaceX #CRS17 #Falcon9, launched and landed (!!!) as seen from the roof of the VAB. Congrats, @elonmusk and team, #MayTheFourthBeWithYou! This was supposed to be a Milky Way composite, but the moisture in the air combined with the rather bright lights around the Vehicle Assembly Building made the shot I had in mind an impossibility. The lights that illuminate the front of the VAB are very bright, so much so that you can see the VAB's shadow in the thin cloud above us (top left of the frame). You can see the cloud of the Milky Way, but it's very faint, and mostly washed out from all the surrounding light. The main attraction is, of course, the launch and landing of the #CRS17 #Falcon9, creating streaks that cross mid-frame. At the top of the streak, you can faintly see the first stage as it turns around to head back to the Cape. The fuzziness in the frame is from the resulting plume, and it was really lovely -- I underexposed it in my tight shot, but Erik Kuna has a fantastic close-up of it. Details: Composite, rocket streak frame was ISO100 and 519-seconds at f18, and the star frame was taken 12-minutes before the launch at ISO2500, 15-secs and f2.8. I should also acknowledge Declan Murphy and his FlightClub.io tool, which was instrumental to planning this shot.

At 2:48am (ET) on May 4, 2019, SpaceX successfully launched a Dragon capsule to the International Space Station. The capsule contains supplies and science experiemnts. (Pic: me / We Report Space)

At 2:48am (ET) on May 4, 2019, SpaceX successfully launched a Dragon capsule to the International Space Station. The capsule contains supplies and science experiemnts. (Pic: me / We Report Space)

The Force was strong with this one: The #SpaceX #CRS17 #Falcon9, launched and landed (!!!) as seen from the roof of the VAB. Congrats, @elonmusk and team, #MayTheForthBeWithYou! (Single 519-sec exposure by me / @WeReportSpace)

No, these aren't Tie Fighters: At 3:32pm (ET), the International Space Station transited the Sun. Visible from the Space Coast, John Kraus, Dan Batcheldor & I were at Florida Institute of Technology to capture it. At a speed of 4.76 miles/sec, it was quick, just .62 secs! (Big thanks to Dr. Batcheldor for letting us use his telescopes for this shot -- as you can tell, I've actually got too much magnification as I couldn't get the full disc of the Sun in the frame!)

Jupiter was getting pretty chummy with the Moon this (Tuesday) morning, seen here 35-mins before sunrise from the Space Coast of Florida. (Pic: me)

Happy #EarthDay2019 from a sunflower field in Mims, Florida! #PictureEarth photo by me; Tag a pic of your favorite natural feature to take part in @NASA's Earth Day social media celebration.

Storms gave way to a dramatic Friday #sunset for the Space Coast of Florida.

This was the scene this (Thurs) morning as the #SpaceX recovery team was removing the legs from the #ArabSat6a #FalconHeavy center core. The #SpaceXFleet returned to @portcanaveral at 2am, carrying the successfully landed first stage. It’s on its side (and the top is missing) after high seas caused the rocket to tip over. (Pic: me / @wereportspace taken from the @explorationtower observation deck)

This was the scene this (Thurs) morning as the #SpaceX recovery team was removing the legs from the #ArabSat6a #FalconHeavy center core. The #SpaceXFleet returned to @portcanaveral at 2am, carrying the successfully landed first stage. It’s on its side (and the top is missing) after high seas caused the rocket to tip over. (Pic: me / @wereportspace taken from the @explorationtower observation deck)

This was the scene this (Thurs) morning as the #SpaceX recovery team was removing the legs from the #ArabSat6a #FalconHeavy center core. The #SpaceXFleet returned to @portcanaveral at 2am, carrying the successfully landed first stage. It’s on its side (and the top is missing) after high seas caused the rocket to tip over. (Pic: me / @wereportspace taken from the @explorationtower observation deck)

This was the scene this (Thurs) morning as the #SpaceX recovery team was removing the legs from the #ArabSat6a #FalconHeavy center core. The #SpaceXFleet returned to @portcanaveral at 2am, carrying the successfully landed first stage. It’s on its side (and the top is missing) after high seas caused the rocket to tip over. (Pic: me / @wereportspace taken from the @explorationtower observation deck)

This was the scene this (Thurs) morning as the #SpaceX recovery team was removing the legs from the #ArabSat6a #FalconHeavy center core. The #SpaceXFleet returned to @portcanaveral at 2am, carrying the successfully landed first stage. It’s on its side (and the top is missing) after high seas caused the rocket to tip over. (Pic: me / @wereportspace taken from the @explorationtower observation deck)

This was the scene this (Thurs) morning as the #SpaceX recovery team was removing the legs from the #ArabSat6a #FalconHeavy center core. The #SpaceXFleet returned to @portcanaveral at 2am, carrying the successfully landed first stage. It’s on its side (and the top is missing) after high seas caused the rocket to tip over. (Pic: me / @wereportspace taken from the @explorationtower observation deck)