September 22, 2021
The Santa Susana Field Laboratory
When I was growing up in Thousand Oaks, every couple of weeks we would hear a loud roar and the windows in our house would start shaking. Earthquake, no; it was the testing of the J-2 rocket engine used on the second and third stages of the Saturn-V at the Santa Susana Field Laboratory about 10 miles away. I've long wanted to see the test stands that they used to test these engines that I heard and felt when I was a child and visited Sage Ranch Park at the northeast edge of the Laboratory in February of 2018 to attempt to photograph them but they were behind a ridge and not visible from the park. Using Google Maps, I determined that I should be able to see the rocket test facilities from the west of the Laboratory. I charted two approaches to this area, one from the south via Las Virgenes Canyon and one from the north from a new development in Simi Valley. I ended up hiking in from Simi Valley and you couldn't see too much until I took a road that lead to the top of ridge and the test facilities were directly in front of me. In addition to the view of the interior of the lab, I really liked the surrounding area as well. In a less light polluted area, this area would have some nice foregrounds for astro landscape shots.
Read MoreWhen I was growing up in Thousand Oaks, every couple of weeks we would hear a loud roar and the windows in our house would start shaking. Earthquake, no; it was the testing of the J-2 rocket engine used on the second and third stages of the Saturn-V at the Santa Susana Field Laboratory about 10 miles away. I've long wanted to see the test stands that they used to test these engines that I heard and felt when I was a child and visited Sage Ranch Park at the northeast edge of the Laboratory in February of 2018 to attempt to photograph them but they were behind a ridge and not visible from the park. Using Google Maps, I determined that I should be able to see the rocket test facilities from the west of the Laboratory. I charted two approaches to this area, one from the south via Las Virgenes Canyon and one from the north from a new development in Simi Valley. I ended up hiking in from Simi Valley and you couldn't see too much until I took a road that lead to the top of ridge and the test facilities were directly in front of me. In addition to the view of the interior of the lab, I really liked the surrounding area as well. In a less light polluted area, this area would have some nice foregrounds for astro landscape shots.
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