is this real?
Yeah, SAOCOM 1A launch last night.
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Fucking gorgeous, why did it create such huge cloud in the middle?
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First stage has 9 Merlin engines (Hence Falcon 9) with quite thin nozzles optimised for atmospheric thrust.
Second stage has a single Merlin engine with a much wider nozzle, optimised for thrust in a vacuum, producing the wider spray. It was launched just after sunset, and the exhaust gases from the second stage caught the light.
That video was from Downtown LA. Scott Manley got a good shot the SF bay area.
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Official photos on SpaceX’s Flickr https://www.flickr.com/photos/spacex/44262166295/in/photostream/
And some pretty ones from Twitter
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Forever
This person wins.
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One of my favorite personalities is Emily Lakdawalla
She’s cute, bubbly and knows her stuff
Edit: She was when she was a redhead
What Astonomy web sites looked like in the 90’s
http://astronomy.org
Many moons ago NASA had it’s 4 great observatories idea.
2 survive, Hubble and Chandra
Chandra is back online
Best observing in the 18th
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Juno, the gift that keeps on giving
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Kepler back online after going into safe mode on oct 19th
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yes I am the guy that has the astronomy thread on “Watching” 
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Update a few days old kepler has run out of fuel and the telescope has been shutdown
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F
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the fuel shortage was warned about in may of this year it was expected and because 100 Million miles from earth and its antenna will not contact earth (pointed the right direction) so it was shut down.
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