ULA Atlas V 531 NROL-101 2020-11-13 17:34

Launch of ULA's Atlas V rocket, carrying a classified payload, as viewed from suburban Charleston, SC.

** Watch at the highest resolution you can ** Youtube's compression has *almost* make the second stage invisible, and it basically make the farings invisible, but they are there... barely.

Starts on the right edge of the screen (South).
What you're seeing is the first stage, just after the three SRBs have separated. At 1:32, the first stage engine cuts off, then shortly after the second stage lights up. Some time before this, the two faring halves separate. If you look *really* closely, you can see the two halves. There is also another object that glints off the sun a few times. The faring halves and the flashing object were much more visible by eye. The camera's noise reduction 'smoothed' them out a bit. I'll like reduce the noise reduction on the camera to try to reduce that effect, though these cameras are *extremely* noisy, which is the price I pay for the sensitivity.