Virginia Beach Photography - VaBeachPhotography.com » Skies

Sarun And Shaun’s Engagements Virginia Beach

William Coyle — Sun, 18 Jul 2010 17:42:03 +0000

Sarun and Shaun didn’t need to much assistance in posing for the camera. Its great when you can tell a couple to pretend were ( the photographers ) not here and everything else falls into place. We took the tour of the beaches and a little urban area to tie together some amazing photos. Nyah their beautiful daughter reminded me very much of Madison when she is at the beach collecting shells and looking for little crabs. Here are a few of my favorites from the session. I look forward to Sept 25th in Richmond and I mean come on, how cool is this couple having a limo pick me up, drive me around all day, and then back home…!!!

Moon Halo

William Coyle — Thu, 03 Dec 2009 04:48:52 +0000

On December 1 ,2009, the moon was not its usual self. The moon came with an extra bonus and one that was very beautiful call a Moon Halo. Now I have seen these halos before but on this night it was very defined and even had color on the outer portion of the halo. A moon halo is a ring of light surrounding the moon. The halo is caused by light from the moon passing through ice crystals in high thin clouds. Usually, the light is reflected rather than scattered, which causes the ring to appear white. Sometimes, the light shining through the ice crystals is scattered and the rings are then colored. Often there is a bright white area immediately surrounding the moon that is edged with a colored ring. At other times, there is another larger ring outside of the first one and this one had a very faint one if you look closely.

Stars And Strikes

William Coyle — Fri, 03 Jul 2009 15:36:35 +0000

There is nothing more I would rather do then sit and watch storms go up over the Chesapeake Bay and a nice blanket of stars as the backdrop. As I talked about on my last post storm season has been slow but Wednesday night provided storms that reported having waterspouts and micro burst that sent a tractor trailer crashing into the rails and almost over the side of the Chesapeake Bay Bridge Tunnel near the second island. The first photo shows a lightning strike close to the tunnel and a microburst of wind and rain to the right side of the photo. No more then 5 mins after this shot was taken fire trucks and rescue squads were racing to the second island where the accident took place. I am pretty sure the downburst of rain and wind caught the driver off guard as these situations happen without warning sometimes. I hope for more opportunities at this location before the season ends. I hope everyone enjoys the 4th with family and friends and please be safe out there.

Conclusion To Wallops Island Rocket Launch

William Coyle — Wed, 20 May 2009 05:26:15 +0000

After three scrubs of the Minotaur 1 rocket with the TacSat-3 satellite at Wallops Island the fourth time was the ticket. The rocket took off around 7:55pm EST with a loud roar and a quick pace into orbit. I will fill in more details of the launch and video but right now its late and I have so much material to look at and process for this post. Here are a couple of unedited shots from tonight’s launch of the rocket..

Wallops Island Rocket Launch Invite

William Coyle — Tue, 05 May 2009 03:56:22 +0000

A little off the norm from what I usually write about but I wanted to share this with people that keep an eye on the blog. I got an invite to watch NASA’S launch of a Minotaur 1 rocket from only 8000 feet away (media credentials baby, got to love them). This is very exciting for me and one of the things on my “list of things to do” among many others. I have been in large tornados, major hurricanes, softball size hail and lightning less then 75 yards away and storm chasing has always been a great high for me and one that I will never stop doing but with a long list of things I have always wanted to do or see would be to see a large rocket take off at a close distance (and other things I will keep under lock and key). This will be the third time the NASA location has attempted a launch of this sort in the last 14 years. In October 1995, the liftoff of a 50-foot-tall Conestoga rocket ignited normally, but the vehicle exploded over the Atlantic just 46-seconds later but in December 2006, a 69-foot-long, 5-foot wide, 35-ton, four-stage Minotaur 1 rocket successfully launched the TacSat-2 satellite, carrying a semisecret payload from the Pentagon’s Missile Defense Agency. The Minotaur 1 rocket may be visible as far north as southern Maine; as far south as northeastern Florida and as far west as eastern Kentucky which with weather and cloud cover should be well visible to the Hampton Roads area of Virginia. A little info on the rocket that will be launched from the Wallops Island site. The Minotaur 1 is a launch vehicle sometimes called “half man and half beast” because it combines features of the Minuteman missiles and Pegasus rockets. It also merges space technologies designed for both military and commercial ventures. Minotaur 1 is a four-stage solid fuel space launch vehicle utilizing Minuteman rocket motors for its first and second stages, reusing motors that have been decommissioned as a result of arms reduction treaties. The Minotaur’s third and fourth stages, structures, and payload fairing are common with our highly reliable Pegasus XL rocket and feature flight proven avionics systems. The ground-launched Minotaur 1 rocket is capable of launching payloads up to 580 kg (1,278 lbs) into low Earth Orbit. I think it’s important for this launch to succeed for future opportunities for the Wallop Island NASA facility.

The launch window of the Minotaur 1 rocket from Wallops Island will take place on Tuesday, May 5, 2009, the launch window will take place between 8:00pm till 11:00pm weather and mechanical permitting. If either of those issues arise the launch will take place the next day at the same times. I will have a number of still cameras and the Sony FX1 high definition video camera set up for this event. Here is the plan for shooting this event. Depending what time the launch happens will make settings of the cameras different. The first camera will be the Nikon D200 with the Nikon 10.5mm fisheye lens to capture the whole sky and the trail of the whole launch which should be pretty cool and I might need to stack the images for this camera depending on the time and light that is still effecting the skies. The Nikon D300 will be the tricky one. I will have the Nikon 80-200mm AF-S f 2.8 on the Nikon D300 for the first 10 seconds of the launch to capture the take off and this is where I become a little hazy. The reason it is hazy is because I have never seen a rocket take off so I cannot judge how much light will be coming from the engines of the rocket and how bright it will be. This sort of thing is new to me and with lightning I can judge by one or two bolts and go from their but I do not have the pleasure so I will have to make a guess and go from there. After the 10 seconds have passed I will switch to the Nikon 17-55mm f 2.8 and take another approach to wide angle. All this will happen as I operate the Sony FX1 HD video camera. I will have plenty of time to sort out the details when I am there and will post photos and video of the launch but I do encourage anyone who would like to see this event from the local Hampton Roads area to step outside and take the time to look up and watch this event as I am sure it will be jaw dropping to watch the rocket but might be even better after the event to see the vapor trail being lit up by the sun that has already set.

Take some time and look at some of the videos YouTube has with the launch of this type of rocket and then google the same subject and look at some of the images these guys get with the launch of this rocket…WOW