Space Shuttle Discovery on it's way to Amarillo...

Indy · Post by **Indy** » Sun Sep 20, 2009 10:16 am

for a fuel stop on the way back to Kennedy Space Center in Florida...getting ready to head over to the airport and try to get some good pictures

http://flightaware.com/live/flight/NASA911

Indy · Post by **Indy** » Sun Sep 20, 2009 5:00 pm

Spent about 3 hours at the airport today, watching the shuttle land, refuel, then take back off out of here, heading to Carswell down in Ft. Worth.

Got a lot of great photos, took nearly 400 in all. Here's a sampling of what I took.

You can see more of the photos I took on my flickr page here: http://www.flickr.com/photos/sonicaeron ... 294411027/

I'll be uploading more photos later today as I get a chance...

Humboldt · Post by **Humboldt** » Sun Sep 20, 2009 5:08 pm

Great shots Indy!

These must be the one's that National Geographic didn't want.

Indy · Post by **Indy** » Sun Sep 20, 2009 5:12 pm

Thanks

I knew that when the shuttle had landed in California last week that there would be a chance for it to come through Amarillo...sure enough, they had posted their flight plan last night on the NASA website with a stopover here for fuel. Got down there early to get a good spot, then just waited it out

I was really hoping for another chance to see the shuttle come through town. The camera I have now compared to the camera I had two years ago are worlds apart as far as image quality goes.

I'm looking through the stuff right now trying to decide what I'm going to get a full size print made to hang on the wall, along with my shuttle picture from two years ago hanging on the wall

Humboldt · Post by **Humboldt** » Sun Sep 20, 2009 7:11 pm

I like your shots more than these http://www.google.com/hostednews/ap/art ... AD9ARAQMG0

Indy · Post by **Indy** » Sun Sep 20, 2009 9:01 pm

Humboldt wrote:I like your shots more than these http://www.google.com/hostednews/ap/art ... AD9ARAQMG0

Thanks

I saw some shots this morning from the same spot in the AP story by another photographer on flickr before heading over to the airport..it looked like they had a great vantage point, but low lighting, as it was just before dawn, so they had to bump up the ISO on their cameras and drop the shutter speed...not something you really want to be doing with an aircraft flying by at a high rate of speed

I had a couple of 8x10s made of my favorite shots from today and they're now framed and hung on the wall next to the shots I took of the Atlantis shuttle when it was in Amarillo two years ago

chimdogger · Post by **chimdogger** » Mon Sep 21, 2009 9:06 am

Is it me or is the shuttle looking old? Great shots!

Indy · Post by **Indy** » Mon Sep 21, 2009 10:40 pm

chimdogger wrote:Is it me or is the shuttle looking old? Great shots!

Thanks

As far as it looking old? Well, it is the oldest shuttle in the fleet now, nearly 30 years old...

CiscoKid · Post by **CiscoKid** » Tue Sep 22, 2009 11:44 am

not to mention it prolly won't get cleaned up until Kennedy has time to inspect it and make repairs

Illini25 · Post by **Illini25** » Tue Sep 22, 2009 1:57 pm

Awesome photo's!!

You should try to submit some to Airliners.net. I'm sure they would get in.

Indy · Post by **Indy** » Tue Sep 29, 2009 7:44 pm

Illini25 wrote:Awesome photo's!!

You should try to submit some to Airliners.net. I'm sure they would get in.

I'll probably do that after touching up the images just a hair...airliners.net is insanely picky when it comes to image quality

On a secondary note, I found a picture of my wife and I at the Shuttle stopover taken by another photographer on flickr:

I'm busy snapping away at the pictures, and she's sitting back relaxing while reading a book

Shouldn't take a genius to look at the three guys there and figure out which one is me

Humboldt · Post by **Humboldt** » Tue Sep 29, 2009 9:17 pm

You should print and frame that shot.

Indy · Post by **Indy** » Sat Oct 03, 2009 4:05 pm

Humboldt wrote:

You should print and frame that shot.

I may just have to do that, to go with the two framed shots I've now got up of the shuttle stopover

The two guys in the picture with me and my wife, I also had snapped a shot of:

Got to talking to them and found out they were both a couple of aviation enthusiasts as well. They had found out about the shuttle coming in the same way I did...by watching the NASA home page and keeping tabs on the flight through flightaware.com.