Superman at Shuttle Launch

I believe I caught Superman flying in the area of the shuttle launch Friday night. You see him? I guess he was there to make sure things went well. I took these from SapceView Park in Titusville. 12 Miles from the launch I'm told. Canon 40D 70-200F4 L with 1.4 converter.
ISO 400, 1/400, 6.3 on a monopod. They've been blown up a bit.

Neat-o!

Hilarious!

Cool!

Nice capture! I wonder how many he watches over.

Holy crap! Did you do one with a really tight crop to see if you can get a better outline of the shape of it?

Theres gotta be an explanation for it!

That's the tightest I cropped it. It sure looks like his cape. I guess it could be a bird or a plane, but I think it's the Man of Steel. I'll blow it up some more and see what I can see.

Very entertaining.

Personally, I'd clean the sensor first. A bit of gasoline and a wire brush and you should be good.........

I got a bunch of shots of it too.

QUESTION: Can anyone explain the color cast on these pics (mine are the same color??)

Mark H

PS: If you can send a 100% crop or better I can probably ID what it was. There were several Gulfstreams, a few T-38s, at least 5 C-130s, and a couple of helicopters (Hueys) out flying patrols (mostly keeping people away from it)......

AFAIK, during the launch, there is like a 20 mile radius no fly zone, or might be even larger at night launches.

i doubt that it can be planes... maybe birds?

Maybe some of the insulation tiles that protects the shuttle?

Actually the flying stuff I mentioned was all Govt.... They patrol it pretty heavily.......

Mark H

Hi,

The object you see is most probably a buzzard or even a eagle. It is in the foreground and not anywhere close to the orbiter. In my experience, i have photographed large birds in far close proximity to the rising stack at launch. The vibrations that arise cause the unsettling of these creatures. Around the pad there are a lot of bird canons that fire to move the birds out and hence prevent a bird strike at launch. ird strikes can be catastrophic too..just like what happaned to Columbia. If you look in the picture of mine from STS-114, you can see a bird (very similar to what the thread starter's picture) off to the right.

http://www.airliners.n​et …-Space-Shuttle/0898223/L/

I was at 3.4 miles from the Pad 39B and the bird was a lot closer to me than the STS.

On this particular mission (if i remember right), there was another buzzard that collided with the ET and then vaporized in the fires of the SRBS. it was captured on the remote cameras. In one frame the bird exists and then it just goes "poof' in the next frame.

There are a host of NASA aircrafts but they stay away from the pad at launch time. the RB-57 is up there filming but again it is miles away from the STS and a lot higher up. The NORAD provided top cover are on the outer ring and they stay even further out.

So your saying it wasn't Superman? I'm very disappointed.

Thanks