Category Archives: Astronomy and Space

Let’s Do Launch!

March 15, 2022 exploRVistas 10 Comments

Melbourne Beach, Florida – March 15, 2022 – Written by Jim

If there is any one thing that sums up this winter on Florida’s Space Coast, it has been the increased number of launches from previous years. We’ve seen a total of eighteen successful launches and one launch failure so far. There are two more rockets scheduled to head to orbit before we depart Florida. Two of the successes were ULA Atlas V rockets and all of the rest were SpaceX Falcon 9’s. The failure was a tiny 45 foot tall Astra rocket that tumbled out of control after it was out of our view. That ended up in the Atlantic Ocean. It is interesting to note that the first launch we saw this season was a crewed flight, as will be the last one at the end of March.

Normally, people tend to favor seeing the night launches the best.

There is just something special about seeing the changing colors of the exhaust plume as the craft soars overhead.

Oddly enough, our favorite launch of the year occurred in the late afternoon. That one was a SpaceX CSG-2 mission that flew south, just off the coast. It went right by us. The stages separated almost directly above us, with the first stage turning around and flying back to the cape and landing. I had my camera on it the entire flight and caught this video:

The only thing that might have made it better is if had occurred the day before, as originally planned. The skies were even clearer then. Unfortunately, Royal Caribbean’s Harmony of the Seas decided to leave Port Canaveral and sail into the Coast Guard exclusion zone, which forced a launch scrub. An investigation is underway on that.

In addition to that video, I set my iPhone on a tripod for that mission and, using the Slow Shutter app, I captured this composite:

This is basically a time exposure. The ascending rocket is the solid line that angles to the right. The interrupted line is the returning booster…with the upper line being the entry (into the atmosphere) burn and the lower line being the landing burn. That is my all time personal favorite! Perhaps had the launch occurred the previous day, this wouldn’t have been so interesting. 😊

So has this season been all launches? Not by a long shot! We were fortunate to see the return of our Canadian friends this year, as the border has reopened between the U.S. and Canada. Our park is much more entertaining when everybody is here! We’ve had twice-weekly shuffleboard tournaments, which is something new this season.

Mark is our line judge; a job he obviously takes seriously.

We’ve had visits from our friends Terry & Diane, Rod & Mary and a contingent of college pals.

Here we are celebrating Jake Jump’s win in Lakeland where he pitched for Fontbonne University. We’ve seen him every year he’s played in Florida. This is his senior year and the end of an era. Dad Jim is taking the photo. We also met up for a rocket launch in Cocoa Beach:

Get your cameras ready. 3…2…1…

…and we have liftoff!

I’ve added a new fixture to our flagpole this year, to let people know when the launches are going to be. It started out as this:

Well, that doesn’t really cover all of the NASA, Blue Origin, ULA and Astra launches that take place, so we updated to this:

I had this flag custom made. That gets the job done! Our neighbors have come to rely on it. 😊

One last thing that is new this winter is my purchase of a new guitar! I haven’t played I probably 25 years, and my old 12-string Guild is in disrepair in our storage room in Michigan. I purchased a Zager 6-string and have started online lessons through Justin Guitar. So much is available online now that wasn’t when I learned back in high school! I was always a strummer and never learned how to pick. That is changing, as I’ve already learned a lot in the month I’ve had it. Our friends Becky and Joe had their musician neighbors Barbara and Jason from Montana visiting here, and Jason asked to borrow my guitar one evening. Here’s a little video of the two of them, with Barbara on her octave mandolin.

My goal is to play like that. Such a light touch!

So that’s about it for now. We are gearing up for a summer’s worth of work on our cabin in Michigan, so stay tuned for that! We are done with subcontractors, so it is Diana and I making it happen from here on out. Lots to do for one summer; hopefully it is complete by the time we head back south! Until next time, safe and happy travels to all!

Astronomy and Space, Florida, Friends

Autumn in Florida

December 15, 2021 exploRVistas 15 Comments

Melbourne Beach, FL – December 14, 2021 – Written by Jim

Rockets, sunshine and a new Costco…oh my! What more could two people want?

Our fall in Brevard County, Florida has been a combination of walks on the beach, launches from Cape Canaveral, sprucing up our lot at the park and buttoning up paperwork from our summer construction project. We’ve had 4 launches since we got here, three of which we watched from our beach.

First up was a SpaceX Falcon 9 daytime launch of Crew 3. When there are humans on board, we all tend to hold our breath a bit. This is a composite streak shot I took on my iPhone of that mission. This type of photography really works well on the night launches, as you will see on my next photos.

Next up was a SpaceX Falcon 9 night launch.

This mission carried over 50 Starlink satellites into orbit There is a lot going on in this composite, which I will try to explain. The brightest streak is the first stage rising from Cape Canaveral, which ends near the top of the arc. That is MECO, or main engine cutoff. There is a slight gap before the second stage lights and the arc continues. While it appears that the rocket is falling at that point, it is actually continuing to rise over the curve of the globe. Note that I was able to get the entire arc into the frame, as the rocket was flying northeast, which is away from us. The squiggly line to the left is an airplane, as is the swooping line to the right. Both were flying towards us and stayed well outside the restricted airspace. The jumble of light at the bottom of the photo is a group of four people sitting on the beach with flashlights and phones and the couple on the shoreline is Bill and Erin, neighbors of ours from the park.

Next up was an Atlas V launch by United Launch Alliance.

That rocket had 5 solid rocket boosters, which really made it jump off the pad. It flew straight east, which made it impossible to catch it all on my iPhone, even at wide-angle. We watched this flight with friends Becky, Joe and Lynette at 5 in the morning. Shortly after this was taken, we could see the 5 solid boosters fall away, twinkling as they fell towards the ocean. After that, we were treated to a rare spectacle:

This is a photo (not a composite) of the second stage heading over the horizon. It is the yellowish dot near the ocean. Above it is the exhaust plume being lit up by the sunrise. While the sky remains dark for us at 5:15 AM, that rocket is high enough and far enough east to see the rising sun. What a treat that was! Two days after that, there was another Falcon 9 launch that we missed, as it was at 1 AM. Becky, Joe and Lynette saw it, but we couldn’t drag ourselves out of bed. 🙂 We have many more launches coming up, including one from a new company on the Space Coast called Astra. Their first two launches were from Alaska, of all places. NASA is planning on launching their first SLS moon rocket in the spring, so that will hopefully happen while we are here. We also received news that SpaceX is building launch facilities at the cape for Starship, their gigantic rocket that performs a belly flop on its way back down from space.

They are currently conducting those test launches from Texas. Starship will be taller than a Saturn V moon rocket and will be the most powerful launch vehicle ever built. Exciting times around here, for sure.

News closer to home is that we finally have a working refrigerator in the RV! Our previous gas/electric fridge stopped working on electric about a month after the warranty expired, early last year. The service technician we purchased it from came several times last winter, but was never able to resolve the issue. We attempted to get another gas/electric this past summer from Camping World, but twice it arrived damaged. We finally had them refund our money. When we got to Florida, our friends Brenda and Jim told us that their new fifth wheel came with a 12 volt refrigerator. We had never heard of this type, so we looked them up online. It uses a small compressor, similar to a house fridge. The bonus is that it doesn’t have the large absorption unit on the back, so there are 2 more cubic feet of space inside the unit. It keeps things nice and cold, too! Many thanks to our friend Mark for helping us install it.

Back in Michigan, our cabin is online and letting us know that all is well. We have a wifi thermostat that lets us know what the furnace is doing, along with the current inside and outside temperature. Our wall of windows has been a boon when the sun is out, as the temperature in the house climbs above the set point of the thermostat. Free heat is a good thing! We also have a monitor on the propane tanks, so we know how much we have left. The electric cooperative even has an app that shows us our hourly usage. We’ve been pleased with how efficient the cabin has been so far.

Along with our security system, our friends Lane and Patti are keeping an eye on things up there, as are our neighbors on both sides of us. Hopefully these two will be able to bring their fifth wheel south one of these days and hang out in the sun with us. We sure do miss them!

Another fun thing for us is that our barn now has a Menards SKU number, meaning you can go online, get the plans and build one for yourself!

When we designed it, we used their planner…so the design becomes their property. They did ask if they could use it in their ads, so they must really like it! They also have the materials package listed separately on a different page. Search “Valley Garage” on the Menards.com website.

And there is nothing quite like celebrating the holidays on the Space Coast! We kicked off the season on Thanksgiving by celebrating at Jerry and Linda’s place with several other friends. We also went with friends Bonnie and Fred to check out the lights at Wickham Park.

The display is normally a drive through event, but they open it up to walkers one weekend a season. It is huge! Sure is great to see these two again!

Speaking of decorations:

We are all decked out for another holiday season!

We even got the truck into the act this time. 🙂

And last but not least, we have a new Costco on the Space Coast!

Now…if only we could find room in the fifth wheel for this. 🙂

That’s about it for now. Stay tuned for more launches and other Florida fun before we head back north to resume our building project. Until next time, safe and happy travels to all!

Astronomy and Space, Florida, Fulltime RVing

Things Are Looking Up!

December 21, 2019 exploRVistas 15 Comments

November 1 – December 21, 2019 – Florida’s Space Coast

Written by Jim

With all the people along the Space Coast of Florida looking up at the skies recently, it’s a wonder we haven’t all tripped and fallen over each other. Several launches have occurred since we’ve arrived, along with a unique event that had our eyes on the sky. More on that last one in a bit. We will also fill you in on a few things that have been happening with us lately.

Our first goal when we arrived in Florida was to get our first of two rounds of Shigrix shingles vaccines. That had to be put on hold after Diana and I came down with some pretty nasty colds from our trip south. Those carried on for two weeks and kept us home bound except for one trip to the beach on November 11 to watch SpaceX launch another 60 satellites into their Starlink internet constellation.

I did manage to grab this short video of it peeking through the clouds as it soared over the ocean. After it disappeared into the clouds, we followed suit and vanished from sight into out RV to continue our recovery. And SpaceX recovered their booster, after it landed on the barge Of Course I Still Love You 250 miles off the coast.

Once we felt we were over our colds, we made our way to the pharmacy to get those vaccines. We knew the side effects of them was flu-like symptoms for a day or two, so we weren’t looking forward to that. The pharmacist told me “As quickly as the side effects hit you, they will be equally quick to leave.” He wasn’t kidding. I felt as if I was hit by a truck, as every joint in my body ached until 1 PM the following day. By 1:15, it was gone. Fortunately, Diana had just mild symptoms. We have one more round to go in mid January and then we are (hopefully) protected.

The rest of November had us sprucing up our lot.

The sticker grass invades the plantings each summer, so it is up to us to clean it up. The park owners didn’t plant this landscaping (previous residents did), so they require us to maintain it or they will take it out and let the grass take over. We like the look of the plantings and gladly put in the effort to keep them looking nice. It’s only labor, and the sandy soil is easy to work with.

On December 4, we headed up to Port Canaveral with out friends Bob and Pat to view the next SpaceX launch up close. We were actually a bit too close, as we had a hill blocking our view of the pad. It would’ve been great once the rocket came over the hill, but unfortunately the winds were too high to launch. It did launch the next day, and we viewed it from our beach. This particular mission was a resupply trip to the International Space Station.

This is a frame grab from a failed attempt at a video. I made a rookie mistake and left it on autofocus. Still, not too bad considering the rocket is a good 50 miles away at this point.

Once again, SpaceX recovered their booster, landing 250 miles off of Jacksonville on Of Course I Still Love You. These people are good at what they do.

Our next event was a quick day trip to Lakeland to meet up with fellow RV-Dreamers for a picnic.

What a treat to get together with these folks! The big news this year is that several couples…including Howard and Linda (RV-Dreams founders and owners in the center of this photo)…have transitioned from full-time to part-time status. Many of us have bought houses or property and are establishing roots. The two of us are still officially full-timers for another three years or so, until our heads hit the pillows in our cabin.

And on that home front, we have made some progress on our Northern Michigan property. We have our garage plans drawn and are in the middle of securing permits. Most of our subcontractors have been lined up and we are awaiting quotes from a few more. We feel we are on track to have a completed garage and utilities by the time we head back here next fall.

Following that, we headed to Cocoa Beach with Bonnie and Fred for that unique event we mentioned earlier.

Here are the four of us, ready for the show! And what might that show be that had us looking skyward?

Skydiving Santas! Plane load after plane load full of Santas dropped from the sky and attempted to hit giant inflatable targets on the beach.

This Santa even hitched a ride on his buddy’s parachute on the way down! It was a really fun way to spend the day! Unfortunately for me, I was beginning to come down with yet another cold. Spending the day in breezy conditions probably didn’t help matters. I’m still recovering.

Speaking of recoveries, SpaceX managed the quickest turnaround of a launch facility by sending the JSAT communications satellite on its way on December 16 at 7:10 PM. It flew from Pad 40, which had seen the ISS resupply mission depart just 11 days earlier. Feeling as crummy as I did, I wasn’t thrilled about hanging out on the beach in the cool night air, so I opted for an attempt at a ‘streak shot’ over our Christmas decorated RV. It involves using a tripod, an iPhone, and the Slow Shutter app. Added bonus this time around is that my new iPhone 11 has a wide angle lens available, ensuring more field of vision to catch the rocket’s flame trail.

To say I am pleased with the result is an understatement. From left to right is the first stage trail, main engine cutoff, second stage ignition and the trail until it disappeared from sight. The soft white jumbled blob to the right of our lit up palm trees is our illuminated American flag. That’s the result of the camera overlaying successive photos over each previous image to create the effect. Diana pointed out that it looks like a Christmas angel. 🙂

On Thursday afternoon, after an almost three day voyage from 450 miles offshore, the SpaceX first stage made it back to Port Canaveral.

This is the third time this booster has flown, and it will most likely fly again. Again, SpaceX is good at what they do.

On Friday, December 20, another launch took place. This one was the test flight of the Boeing Starliner, one of the two entries into the Commercial Crew program designed to launch astronauts from American soil again…the other being SpaceX.

With the launch occurring at 6:36 AM, we opted to view it from our corner. This is the view looking north as it disappeared into the clouds. It was clear up at the Cape, so early risers to the north ended up with a great show.

Quick note: As of this writing, the Boeing Starliner experienced a problem and will be returning to Earth early. It is an un-crewed test flight, so no lives are in danger. Stay tuned for updates in our next post. Until then, safe and happy travels to all!

Astronomy and Space, Florida, Fulltime RVing

2019 Spring and Summer Plans

March 9, 2019 exploRVistas 27 Comments

In our last post, we jumped ahead to what we were planning for in September and October of this year with our trip to the United Kingdom and Ireland. After quite a bit of trip routing, we are ready to reveal our spring and summer plans!

Like these pelicans along the shore, we will soon line up with everyone else and fly northward. Once we get to Jacksonville, we are turning westward for a journey to the Grand Canyon and the surrounding area. It will be a very busy slate. Look for a spring full of posts about that trip. We have three months before we have to be back in Michigan to start our volunteer gigs at Sleeping Bear Dunes National Lakeshore. We will be there for two months before heading overseas for a month. And after that???

Well, the fact that I installed a flagpole sleeve in the ground at our site in Florida, I guess that’s a pretty good indication of where we will be next winter! We’ve really come to love it here. Good friends, good weather and…

eZy Watermark_02-03-2019_06-39-42AM

…rocket launches! This particular launch was the Crew Dragon demonstration mission that SpaceX sent to the International Space Station last week. The capsule safely returned on Friday about 200 miles off the coast. Future splashdowns will be within 25 miles of shore, so we should be able to get some photos of them parachuting down.

And an update on our genealogy work: Diana is finding a plethora of information on her roots that will ensure that we have plenty of places to visit when we get overseas. She has been able to go way, way back in her lineage. On my search, I’m currently working between my sixth and tenth great grandparents on my dad’s side. To let you know how involved that is, every one of us have 256 sixth great-grandparents. By the time you get to your tenth great-grandparents, that number balloons to 4096 people! Thanks to the Catholic church records in Canada, there is a record of most every one of mine. And I know that there are several hints waiting to take me beyond that level. Time will tell what I find on my mom’s German side.

We’ve also found time to have fun with our friends in the area.

We checked out the St Katherine’s Greek Festival one day with Fred and Bonnie. It was fun to see the dancers doing traditional Greek dances in their costumes.

We also met our friends Jim and Sue, who were down from Alton, Illinois to see their son Jake pitch for Fontbonne University.

He didn’t end up pitching that afternoon, but he did start today. He got the win, and the team is 10-0 on the year so far.

The four of us rented a nice home on Airbnb which worked out extremely well. What a great time!

So as our time winds down for the year in Melbourne Beach, be sure to keep an eye out for our upcoming posts as we head west. Until next time, safe and happy travels to all!

Astronomy and Space

Exploring New Vistas

February 26, 2018 exploRVistas 35 Comments

Ever since Diana and I were young, we’ve had a keen interest in outer space. As is evident with many of our blog posts, we are drawn towards anything NASA or SpaceX is doing, and we love checking out the night sky. Our positions as interpretive hosts at Prineville Reservoir State Park in Oregon last summer introduced us to the worlds beyond our solar system, in the fact that we had a 16″ deep space Dobsonian telescope to use and share with guests. As our time there was winding down, we knew there was probably going to be a telescope purchase in our future.

The reality of the situation is that we are full-time RVers. We had become used to some pretty amazing images through the eyepiece of that 16″ diameter telescope. With the physical constraints of available storage space, we knew we weren’t going to be able to haul a 6 foot tall Dobsonian scope around with us. Would we be happy with anything smaller? Enter my cousin John.

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His classification as an amateur astronomer is somewhat of a misnomer, as he is a wealth of knowledge on the subject of nighttime stargazing. He is a member of the University Lowbrow Astronomers, a group of 90 or so amateurs that is associated with the University of Michigan. He also worked for Rider’s Hobby Shops for many years, so he knows what would suit our needs. His suggestion was a Celestron 8″ Schmidt-Cassegrain Reflector. Through the use of concave and convex mirrors, the size of the scope is greatly reduced.

And here it is! It’s actually much smaller than it looks, as the black portion at the end of the scope is a flexible dew shield. It helps keep the glass at the end of the unit from collecting dew from the night air, in addition to cutting down on light coming in from the neighborhood. Setup is easy, taking us about 10 minutes from placing the tripod to being fully aligned and ready to go.

Once everything is set up for the location we are in, a catalog of available objects to view is automatically stored in the hand controller. From there, it’s a matter of pushing a few buttons for the scope to find a star or planet. And if that isn’t cool enough, it tracks the objects as the Earth rotates. Oh, yeah…. 🙂

In Oregon, we found that the best part of viewing the night sky was being able to share it with others. In the week or so since we bought it, we have had several neighbors stop by to take a peek in the evening. Melbourne Beach isn’t exactly the darkest place around, but we’ve been able to see the Moon, a faint Andromeda Galaxy, and a stunning Orion Nebula. The first and last ones are crowd pleasers. In the early morning, Jupiter, Mars and Saturn are in full view. Eventually, we will get a mount to take some photos of what we are observing. I was able to take a couple of handheld shots with my iPhone, which is fairly tough to do.

Here is an out-of-focus Saturn. It is much sharper in the eyepiece.

Same thing with Jupiter and two of its largest moons. With the filters that came with the package, we could actually see the Great Red Spot.

The easiest thing to snap an iPhone photo of through an eyepiece is the Moon. There is enough detail for the phone to focus on, making for a fairly decent image. This was taken Friday, February 23. In this photo is almost all of man’s lunar exploration history.

I’ve drawn the approximate landing sites of the Apollo missions on the photo, just for reference. Apollo 12 and 14 are just beyond the terminator (shadow). No telescope on Earth is strong enough to see the actual Apollo hardware, but NASA’s Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter has secured some neat images of them. That darker spot between Apollo 11 and 17 is the Sea of Tranquility.

As we get more proficient with the scope, we will share more images. More importantly, as we meet up with people on the road, we will be able to host star parties! Here’s hoping for clear skies to explore some amazing vistas!