He was in the right place at the right time.

You know those moments when you're kicking yourself because you don't have your camera with you?  Well it must have been United Airlines Capt. Joe Doniach's lucky day!

On a recent flight he looked out the window and saw a rocket off the coast of California blasting up through the evening sky.  The contrail and exhaust from the rocket were illuminated by the sun even though the sun had just set over California.

In seven amazing photos he captured the rocket climbing up through the atmosphere then entering into space.  The last few photos show the slim contrail changing to the cone-shaped exhaust that occurs in the vacuum of space.

The rocket was launched from California's Vandenberg Air Force Base.

Oh, and that bright evening star?  That's the planet Venus.

All photos are copyright protected.  Not to be used for commercial purposes.

San Francisco 1906: The forgotten reel of film

In 1906 an unknown filmmaker attached a movie camera to the front of a cable car and let it roll for eleven minutes while it traveled down Market Street -- just days before the epic 1906 earthquake.  For the next 100 years the film lay buried in history.

The previously undiscovered reel of film was digitally restored by San Francisco film archivist Rick Prelinger giving a breathtaking view of a glorious era and a great city unaware of the tragedy about to strike.  It was recently broadcast by CBS News 60 Minutes.

It's a time traveler's dream.  Enjoy!

                                                         Click on the small box at the bottom of the video to watch in full screen mode.

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Notes:  In 1962, when I was in 7^th grade, I was fascinated by a large, heavy paper weight on my teacher’s desk.  

My teacher, a Catholic nun named Sister Valeria, was about 70 years old.  One day I asked her what it was.  She picked it up and handed it to me.  It was piece of molten lead that contained dozens of coins embedded in and around the edges of the blob of metal.  None of the coins’ dates were older than 1906.  I saw Indian head pennies and nickels, and Liberty dimes.

As I held it she explained to me that she grew up as a young girl in San Francisco and was there during the 1906 earthquake.  She said the day after the earthquake her father walked with her down Market Street.  As they looked at the rubble and ashes around them, she said her father saw this clump of metal and picked it up.  Soon he realized what it was.

It was, she said, the melted coin box from a Market Street telephone booth that had burned down on April 18, 1906.

So as I watched this video, I kept looking at each young girl wondering if she might have been the young Sister Valeria.

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My thanks to Bonnie Stair for forwarding this fascinating story.