Landsat 9 launch soon

I understand that one of Landsat's (international) ground stations is in Kunming but I've never visited it.

 

This launch produced some nice photos of upper stage de-orbit burn (not fuel venting?), captured by would-be aurora watchers. Here is the story fro the current version of SpaceWeather.com:

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A COMET MADE OF ROCKET FUEL: Last night, sky watchers in Europe saw a bright comet glide across the night sky. Where did it come from? Hint: It was made of rocket fuel. Martin McKenna photographed the phenomenon from Beaghmore, Northern Ireland:



McKenna, and many others, witnessed the ascent of NASA's new Landsat 9 satellite. It blasted off Sept. 27th (18:12 UT) from California's Vandenberg Air Force Base onboard an Atlas V rocket. A few hours later, the rocket's Centaur upper stage executed a deorbit burn--and that's what European sky watchers saw.

"It was a spectacular sight, like naked-eye comets with tails moving from NE to N while casting shadows," says McKenna.

Landsat 9 is now in orbit, joining its predecessor Landsat 8 in mapping urban sprawl, wildfires, the retreat of glaciers and many other changes to planet Earth. The latest member of the Landsat family carries two new cutting-edge instruments: the Operational Land Imager 2 (OLI-2) and the Thermal Infrared Sensor 2 (TIRS-2). These can detect minute changes in lakes, rivers and forests by analyzing light reflected from Earth's surface.

more images: from Hendrik Wolff of Senja, Norway; from Alan C. Tough of Elgin, Moray, Scotland; from Gordon Mackie of Caithness, Scotland; from Marco Langbroek of Leiden, the Netherlands; from Risto Hautala of Orresokka, Luosto, Finland.