Kelley Day hey! Nice to meet you! I’m glad you were there to share it with me, and to ask the questions so I could answer them and explain for others watching too!

Jess Heitland I’m glad you enjoyed it. :-)

You have to have the right setup, the sun just sets but light still hits stuff high in the atmosphere. We would get colorful trails any time they launched test rockets from Vandenberg, such as ICBMs. www.air-and-space.com/20021014%20Minuteman%20II/05%20exhaust%20trail%20m.jpg

Yeah, what AJ Costa said. Any dawn or dusk launch will look like this. It’s because the rocket is in the sun, but the sky behind it is getting dark. Maximum contrast makes it easier to see than usual. It’s beautiful. :-)

Norma Rae I’ve been thinking about this a bit more. It’s not JUST the sunset, it’s also the orbital trajectory that takes it south from Vandenberg, to the west of LA for you to see. The biggest advantage Vandenberg has over other launch facilities (like Canaveral in Florida) is that there is little to no inhabited land to the south of it. It’s the ONLY place on the continental US that has no inhabited land to the south. Which makes it perfect for polar orbit injection. A polar orbit is one that goes perfectly(ish) North/south, and orbits directly over the north and south poles. To launch a polar orbit from FL involves launching a NON-polar orbit, then burning a lot more fuel to adjust the orbit. ANYWAY. The point being that the launch of Vandenberg also launched in the direction that made it easily visible from the LA area. Then I kinda went off the rails. :-)

Jonathan Duenas normally, they put a “drone ship” out there in the ocean, for it to land on. But they didn’t deploy it this time.