You see that image down below? See that messed up hunk of torched plastic? That’s the remains of a camera after shooting a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket launch earlier this week.
But it’s not that the camera was placed to close and got fired, the reality is actually a lot less dramatic.
Images courtesy: Bill Ingalls
The DSLR belongs to NASA photographer Bill Ingalls, and he said the damage occurred during the latest SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket launch on Tuesday. Ingalls shared a photo of his wrecked gear to Facebook saying, “Well, one remote cam outside the pad perimeter was found to be a bit toast.”
However, if you’re thinking the heat from the launch is what melted the camera, you’d only be half right. After all, look at this photo recovered from the camera’s memory card and you’ll realise how far away it was placed.
What actually happened is that the heat from the launch ignited a brush fire around the launch site, as often happens during rocket launches. Ingall actually had cameras in other areas placed closer to the launch that survived without a scratch. This particular one just happened to be in the middle of the area that went up in flames. By the time firefighters put out the blaze, the camera was already done for.
That in itself is a pretty big blow. For those of you that don’t recognise it, that’s a Canon 5DS DSLR which costs a whopping Rs 2,19,000, not to mention the professional and also expensive L-Series lens it has attached.
Of course, at least the images from the launch were recovered. It seems the camera went on faithfully snapping photos until the heat overwhelmed it.