Wallops Island launch - Black Brant XII - 19 Sept 2009

From Wallops Island, VA NASA launched a Black Brandt XII sounding rocket in an experiment to study noctilucent clouds. I observed the cloud dispersal from MT. Greylock, MA. The pictures were stills taken with a Nikon digital camera and processed with Adope Premier Elements.

Category:

Science & Technology

Tags:

• NASA
• UFO
• Noctilucent clouds
• rocket
• black brandt
• Wallops Island
• astronomy
• UFO Hunters
• mystery

[Torchmeier]

There was only one object in your images, nothing funny or strange about it. I watched the entire flight through binoculars all the way to apogee from the 4th floor roof in New Castle, DL, about 125-150 miles away. It was absolutely amazing.

[lynchrw]

I characterized it as interesting because to me it was. If it was one object, which I do not doubt, was it the "one object" which released the gas in several different burst?

[tazandgypsie]

nasa means

Never

A

Stright

Answer!!!!

[Alipoo10]

Great video! I hope you will be posting more! kudos to you!

[Torchmeier]

"A Black Brant XII would be one helluva nice scale project. "

Yea, I already asked Jeff about making something like that. He said no. :p I'll see you at Higg's Farm for Red Glare then.

[HalfCockedMD]

I fly rockets (just low to mid-power), too - in fact I first heard about the launch thru my local club's email distribution list. Have been to a couple of HPR launches (MDRA), never went into it myself though. That might change, one day, though.  A Black Brant XII would be one helluva nice scale project.

[Torchmeier]

I fly and track rockets all the time, just not past 25K feet. I did see your video, but I have no idea what was caught in the lower portion of view.

[Torchmeier]

I saw one of the stages but I'm not sure which one. Within a few seconds of liftoff we could see it. We had a laptop streaming a live feed on the roof. I think we missed the first stage. I tracked the 3rd stage to apogee laying down on a flat roof. It was so high up that it was nearly in the same sight line as the 4th stage when it fired. It was however vary dim, some of the fuzziness was due to the binoculars fogging a little. it looked like a star that was moving.

[HalfCockedMD]

Torchmeier-

I had my telescope out (a Genesis-SDF, with a 27mm Panoptic eyepiece), and I can't believe I forgot to try and track the rocket through it!!! I was preoccupied with getting the video footage.

Were you able to see any of the stages separate, and how dim was the 4th stage - hard, or easy to track? I couldn't see anything after 3rd stage burnout, with the naked eye.

BTW, if you haven't seen my video yet, please have a look.

[P2WRadioman]

Really???