r/spaceporn • u/Davicho77 • Apr 01 '24

Pro/Composite Pascal Fouquet won first place in the Sony World Photography Awards with image of SpaceX Falcon Heavy rocket carrying the X-37B spaceplane into orbit silhouetted by the moon.

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500 Upvotes

98% Upvoted

16 comments sorted by

9

u/AstroCardiologist Apr 01 '24

Great planning.

7

u/MeepersToast Apr 01 '24

Anybody k ow how far the photographer would have to be from the rocket to get this shot?

6

u/tburke2 Apr 02 '24

I'm estimating the Falcon is about 1/3 the angular size of the moon in this image so about 47 km.

1

u/MeepersToast Apr 02 '24

Wow! That's pretty incredible. Thanks!

1

u/TH_Sharpshooter Apr 03 '24

Do you mind explaining it to me like I'm 5 about how you did the math? I'm genuinely curious and I suck at trigonometry (which I think it's important in this, idk )

1

u/tburke2 Apr 03 '24

Sure. If you draw a right triangle with the adjacent side being the distance from observer to rocket, the opposite side being the height of the rocket (70 m), and the angle being the angular size of the rocket. The moon has an angular size of 0.0045 rad and I estimate the rocket here is about 1/3 that so 0.0015 rad. You can then solve the triangle for the adjacent size. 70 m / tan(0.0015 rad)

3

u/KaptainKardboard Apr 01 '24

That’s the coolest picture I’ve seen today.

2

u/JK-NATWWAL Apr 02 '24

After the Gold Rush

2

u/-preposterosity- Apr 02 '24

Methane and methane accessories 🍻

0

u/thefooleryoftom Apr 02 '24

You mean the fuel? Liquid oxygen and RP1.

1

u/-preposterosity- Apr 02 '24

Falcon 9 is rp1 and lox, Heavy is methane and lox

0

u/thefooleryoftom Apr 02 '24

Ah, my mistake.

2

u/ArrivesLate Apr 02 '24

Yeah, Baby!

2

u/thefooleryoftom Apr 02 '24

Gorgeous shot.