Cloudy skies continued until late Saturday afternoon, 27 June 2026. Unfortunately strong winds kept me out of the observatory that night as Red Flag Warnings continued overnight. Same for Sunday night, 28 June. Monday, 29 June, was also windy into the evening, and then some clouds arrived. Breezy nights kept me out of the observatory.

Wednesday, 1 July 2026, at 1958 MST, there was another SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket launch from Vandenberg Space Force Base in California. With the launch being 22 minutes after sunset here, the twilight sky was too bright to see the launch, but this highly edited iPhone 15 Pro Max shows the rocket contrail. It was taken at 2003 MST. (From Arizona, the best viewing of California rocket launches is 60-90 minutes after sunset.)

At 2044 MST, the launch contrail was nicely visible. The large "?" is from high altitude winds blowing the contrail in different directions. These cropped (horizontally only) photos were taken with the iPhone 15 Pro Max using the Camera app in Night Mode (3 seconds, 5X lens and 2X lens, respectively).

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