More Discovery

Here are a few more pictures from the shuttle launch yesterday. I drove the three hours over there, and it took me over six hours to drive home, so I guess I need to get as much mileage as possible out of these pictures. The shot above shows the shuttle to the left and the two solid rocket boosters after separation on the left. The two SRBs are actually falling into the Atlantic Ocean at the point, but Shuttle Discovery is continuing to move off into space. The curvature of the Earth is what makes it look like it's moving downward. This was probably the longest I've ever watched the shuttle after the launch. I read later that it was visible for more than seven minutes, and was as far north at New Jersey before it winked out of sight.

And three more pictures of that awesome smoke trail. I'm afraid none of my pictures really do it justice. It was just incredible, the way it caught the light and became more and more distorted as the upper level winds twisted it into a pretzel.