Night Launch of Space Shuttle Discovery STS-119

(Click on photos for larger images.)

Here's a view of Space Shuttle Discovery on the launch pad shortly before lift-off. Alfonse took photos from across the Banana River on the NASA Causeway about 6 miles away.



The space shuttle launch lights up the evening sky. Nothing can prepare you for how bright the light gets. Night turns into day.



Here you see the space shuttle doing the roll maneuver that inserts it into low Earth orbit. The contrail reflected the colors of the sunset. The colored area of the cloud looked like a rainbow.



The white dots are the solid rocket boosters dropping.

The glowing sunset colors in the contrail was very unusual. It was one of the most visually spectacular launches ever. The launch was visible hundreds of miles away in Jacksonville, Tampa, and Miami.

More photos of the launch of Space Shuttle Discovery STS-119.