SpaceX’s Falcon Heavy carrying NASA’s Roman Space Telescope crosses the face of the sun as it launches into space from Pad 39A at Kennedy Space Center in Florida in this photo taken by Space.com’s Josh Dinner from a Titusville Hobby Lobby parking lot. This is how he did it. (Image credit: Space.com / Josh Dinner) CAPE CANAVERAL, Florida — Standing in the parking lot of the Titusville Hobby Lobby was perhaps something I should have planned before traveling to Florida for the launch of NASA’s Nancy Roman Grace Space Telescope, but it wasn’t where I expected to be until I sped off in my car. Rocket enthusiasts and locals around Florida’s Space Coast gathered Sunday morning (Aug. 30) to watch SpaceX’s latest Falcon Heavy launch. The triple-boost rocket launched NASA’s newest flagship observatory, the Nancy Grace Roman Space Telescope, which is now en route to an orbital sweet spot nearly 1 million miles from Earth to image the widest views of the universe ever captured, map planets around alien stars, and usher in a new wave of discoveries about phenomena like dark matter and energy. Liftoff occurred at 07:26:49 am EDT (11:26:49 GMT), from Launch Complex-39A at NASA’s Kennedy Space Center (KSC). Getting those 49 seconds was very important. Roman’s launch window is known as an “instantaneous” launch window because its proper orbital delivery depended on timing being precise to the second. And the seconds also mattered for those who witnessed the launch. Any less, and the clouds seeing the location of dozens of photographers at Hobby Lobby, including myself, would not have cleared in time. Any more and the sun would have moved too high in the sky to capture what all those photographers and I were hoping to capture. Josh Dinner Spaceflight Writer Josh Dinner is a spaceflight writer for Space.com. He also photographs rockets. Sometimes from the Hobby Lobby parking lot… The early morning launch took off a little more than 20 minutes after sunrise, while the glowing sphere was still relatively low in the sky. The eastern shores of the Space Coast in the Atlantic Ocean, coincidentally, sometimes offer the rare alignment with one of the missions launching from KSC to have a rocket fly right in front of the sun on its way to space, but only from specific vantage points. Plotting and predicting launch vehicle trajectories is no easy task, but it is made incredibly simpler by using certain software like the popular FlightClub.io, which is used by many photographers to help line up shots that would be nearly impossible. without information on the rocket’s flight path before launch. That, and apps like PhotoPills or The Photographer’s Ephemeris are incredibly useful for planning ahead for rocket launch photos. It’s rare for a launch to line up correctly, and even rarer for a launch vehicle like Falcon Heavy, which flies much less frequently than SpaceX’s Falcon 9 rocket, to line up for a solar transit like the Roman launch did. The sun rises at a slightly different place on the horizon each day, and even a delay of a few minutes in a launch can be enough for the sun to become misaligned with where the rocket is going to fly. And the lineup for Roman’s launch happened to be in the Hobby Lobby parking lot. A SpaceX Falcon Heavy rocket launches with NASA’s Nancy Grace Roman Space Telescope on board from Launch Complex 39 on August 30, 2026, at NASA’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida. Space.com’s Josh Dinner used a remote camera to capture this view. (Image credit: Space.com / Josh Dinner) I hadn’t visited FlightClub.io and was so focused on other parts of Roman’s mission launch coverage that I didn’t think to check to see if a transit was in the cards for Sunday morning. But as excitement for the launch grew and the days until Roman’s launch dwindled, excitement about the possibility of a solar transit spread among KSC photojournalists. However, filming the transit meant abandoning KSC during the launch, which meant literally sacrificing front-row seats for one of the most powerful rockets in the world. The KSC press site is located just three miles (4.8 km) off LC-39A. Hobby Lobby in Titusville, on the other hand, is about 12 miles (19 km). And there were also some concerns about the clouds. The weather during Saturday’s pre-mission briefing predicted only 50% favorable weather conditions for Sunday, and when launch morning arrived, the clouds on the horizon showed no obvious signs of clearing in time for liftoff. I was devastated. What to read next I didn’t want to sacrifice the ability to take a launch photo leaving KSC if the clouds persisted, but if it worked out, this would be my first solar transit rocket launch photo. About an hour before launch, Space Scout’s David Diebold appeared on the KSC press site, and when I asked him, he told me that of course he was going to attempt the shot. “Without guts there is no glory,” he said. He was walking out the door when he said it. David also offered to lend me one of his solar filters for my camera, which was another very influential factor in my decision. It takes about 25 minutes to get from the press site in KSC to the Titusville strip where Hobby Lobby is located, and the launch was about 45 minutes away. Looking at the clouds once again, I decided to take a chance. “No guts, no glory,” I told my fellow Space.com reporters, who were able to handle things from the press site in my absence. I jumped in my car and headed to Hobby Lobby. Everyone trying to get this shot was already there when I arrived, as were hundreds of other launch spectators across the street, lining the stretch of spots along the Banana River where several launch pads are visible. Fortunately, I was able to slot in between launch photographers Andrew McCarthy of Consider the Cosmos and Max Evans of NASA Space Flight, who generously offered me some last-minute tips for my camera settings. I shot with a Canon R5 Mark II, an absolute unit of photographic engineering and one of Canon’s newest full-frame mirrorless cameras, with an RF100-400mm F5.6-8. With my lens zoomed to 400 and my David sun filter on end, I lowered the R5’s exposure to 1/20000 and set the aperture to F16 and waited just a few minutes until takeoff. It wasn’t until those last few minutes that the clouds finally cleared. Someone listening to the SpaceX live stream started a 5-second countdown, and everyone went silent and hands and eyes moved to the cameras and headsets. “Takeoff”. Another view of SpaceX’s Falcon Heavy rocket launching NASA’s Roman Space Telescope from one of Dinner’s remote cameras. (Image credit: Space.com / Josh Dinner) I didn’t even look up to try to see if I could make out the rocket on the horizon. I waited a few seconds later as Falcon Heavy flew in front of the sun. It happened in a split second. I simply held my finger down on the shutter button and waited. Rocket launches are inherently risky endeavors. Millions of dollars are invested in the design and construction of unique satellites that are sent into orbit, and millions more in the launch vehicles that take them there. But launches don’t always go as planned, and the nature of rockets means that if something goes wrong, things often go very wrong. After all, they are vehicles that channel controlled explosions through Earth’s turbulent atmosphere and into the unforgiving vacuum of space. But we do it anyway. We send amazing things into the cosmos to expand humanity’s understanding of the universe. Like the new era of discovery that is about to begin with the Roman voyages to their final destination in orbit, we take risks because the benefits are tremendous. And when we do, getting the photo is much better. Without guts there is no glory.
