Justin Anderson, an Aurora hunter and night sky photographer from Manitoba, was camping in Nopiminig Provincial Park over the weekend with a friend. The two of them were photographing the Northern Lights when, around 1:13 in the early hours of Sunday, they saw something. “It was all luck,” Anderson told CTV News. “We were just back at our campsite when he showed me, ‘Hi, what the hell is this?’ and at first we thought it was the moon just because it was so bright – and it was just getting brighter. “Then I grabbed my camera and started writing.” What Anderson and his friend saw hundreds of miles above their heads was the launch of the SpaceX Globalstar FM15 mission. The Falcon 9 rocket was launched on Sunday at 12:27 p.m. ET at Cape Canaveral Space Force Station in Florida. Anderson said he had never seen anything like it and did not expect to see it in Manitoba. “It was on my list to launch rockets for a while,” he said. “But I thought I should plan a trip to Florida for that, not a trip to Noping Provincial Park.” Scott Young, the planetary astronomer at the Manitoba Museum, said there were similar sightings across North America. “It’s exactly like the course of a SpaceX rocket that basically put a satellite in orbit,” he told CTV News. “A lot of people could see it. They have no idea what it is at that moment and only then can we understand what it was they saw.” He said it takes a lot of luck to be able to see a rocket like this launch into the stars. However, Young said it is the perfect time of year to look up at the sky as the northern hemisphere approaches the summer solstice. During this period, the sky from our point of view is dark, but everything in orbit is illuminated by sunlight, giving astrologers a great performance. “If you do not see a new rocket launch, you may see an old rocket spinning and flashing or a satellite where the sun is shining from the solar panel,” he said. “Something always happens up there in the sky, so it’s always worth watching.” Young said that what makes this kind of spectacle so spectacular is the fact that you do not need specialized equipment to see it – you just have to be in the right place at the right time. Anderson said now that he has seen it, he intends to spend a little more time planning his travels in the hope of catching another launch. “It was just an incredible experience,” he said. “And it was very special that I made my first rocket launch in Manitoba.”
