Shuttle launch captured from Space, amazing
 

astronaut #1: " they launched"
astronaut #2:" yupeee, the new playboy magazines and more beer is on the way !!! "


http://serv2.imagehigh.com/imgss/449...lelaunch01.jpg

http://serv2.imagehigh.com/imgss/449...lelaunch02.jpg


they are supposed to be taken from the ISS, would be a conicident to fly over Florida at the exact time (or perfect timing :wink:)
or a very high flying airplane and some PS to show the dark,deep space LOL

If you fly at 30,000 feet at day break you also see that dark band of night in the east - so you wouldn't even need photoshop to see that.

Remember there are all sorts of airborne support vehicles monitoring the launch - so it could be real.

Is the ISS in such a low orbit?

8) 8) 8) awesome pictures!

Wow, that is pretty freaking cool! Thanks for those amazing shots Stmoritzer!

Amazing shots! 8)

You took them yourself??? :lol: JK

Those shots are amazing! 8) :D

Thanks!

the ISS is on a quite low orbit, about 200 miles (330-350km), the height is changing over the time and they have to push teh ISS to a higher orbit.

However, they can make quite some close pictures. One of the best I've seen is that one

http://spaceflight.nasa.gov/gallery/...011e11260.html

the ISS/Shuttle is just above central Switzerland, one can clearly see the lake of Zürich and the runways of Zürich airport :shock:


Having had a second look, I would say it's taken form a plane

Thats incredible :shock:

Cool stuff.. never seen the launch from that perspective before.

I'm sorry, but I highly doubt that was taken from a space station. It looks a lot more like the view from a regular airplane flying at 10-12000 m. 300 km is a lot lot higher than that.

Whatever it was taken from...it´s an amazing pic!

beautiful pics thanks stmortizer ... 8)
the pictures are from some sort of airplane.

Great link St Moritzer!!!! :good:

Would be awesome to see those things launch whilst you were up in the air like that!

Yes - maybe one of the NASA/Air Force planes that are airborne to observe and document every laucnh that takes place ;)

yeah the angle looks all wrong to be from outerspace. prob. a safety plane, after all the problems they have had.

Yeah that sounds like a obvious reason, just to check how it was going.

Even if it's a support plane, it appears to be in the upper atmosphere, so it's a unique angle anyway.

Awesome pics 8)

Spent 5 minutes with Google to confirm who and how they took the images.

The Accent Chase WB-57's based out of Houston took those. That's part of their job description - observe and film launch sequences.

From 60,000ft that's the view from their office ;)

http://img88.imageshack.us/img88/558...ddomsd2.th.jpg

Yeah, I initially thought it would have been a chase plane. It's an awesome set of pics, though. 8)

Dani that is what i was more of getting at with safety plane. record what happens so they can see what went wrong :)

Safety? Its for observaiton - thyey have been doing this since the mid 1960's.

Gathering data and recording the events - and they could see things ground observation mised... those are hand held camera pics... this is what the really look at...

http://img86.imageshack.us/img86/5958/sts115aij4.th.jpg http://img86.imageshack.us/img86/67/sts115xn4.th.jpg

The chase planes also observe landings.

Yeah... its a different group that does the Approach Observations.. these are the Accent Observers.

Heres an onborad video of a Shuttle Landing...

Lets see the Top Gear gang do something this well ;) :P

http://www.nasaspaceflight.com/docs/Short115Reentry.wmv

i love this aircraft,
it was designed as a bomber back in the 60's i thinik ... look what its doing now 8)
thanks for the info RC :P

edit:: weee didnt know 2nd page existed :lol:

^thanks RC45 for the info :good:

nice office they have :lol:
what kind of plane are they flying?

OMG those shots are amazing :shock:

They fly high altitude modded B-57 Canberra bombers.

http://jsc-aircraft-ops.jsc.nasa.gov/wb57/index.html

I would've guessed U-2s. . .

Very interesting :D

Thanks!

+1 8)