The 'Worst Rocket Launch Photo' Contest, Where a Blank White Frame Is Weirdly Accurate

What's going on

The H3 is Japan's current flagship rocket, built by the space agency JAXA and Mitsubishi Heavy Industries and launched from Tanegashima Space Center on a small island off the southern tip of Kyushu. Its tenth flight went up at night, and plenty of people gathered along the coast with cameras to catch it.

One of them posted their shot under the title "H3 Rocket No. 10 Bad Photo Championship," borrowing a long-running Japanese online joke format where people show off their own failed photos of an event. The picture is a line of trees, a fence, and then an enormous wall of white. The rocket itself is nowhere to be seen, because the rocket is the white.

Others chimed in with their own entries, but a surprising number of replies made the opposite point: if you were actually standing there, this is pretty much what your eyes saw.

Comments

H3 Rocket No. 10 Bad Photo Championship

H3ロケット10号機写真下手くそ選手権

@PlanetarianAKR · View on X

-FLASH!-

-ｶｯ!-

ok I can tell it’s a LOT of light lol

すげー光なのはわかるｗ

It’s Sarah Connor’s nightmare

サラ・コナーの悪夢だ

looks like the end of the world lmao

この世の終わりで草

lol it looks like the launch failed

失敗したみたいになっててワロタ

Made a timelapse of the H3 No. 10 launch. You can see the SRB-3 separation and the first-stage separation too (SRB-3 is the solid rocket booster strapped to the side of the H3.)

H3ロケット10号機の打上げをタイムラプスにしてみた SRB-3の分離と第一段分離も確認できる

@PlanetarianAKR · View on X

I mean, you need that much firepower to break free of Earth’s gravity and get to space.

これぐらいの火力がないと地球の重力を振り切って宇宙に行けませんもんね。

Not like you can practice beforehand, there’s no other light source that bright. I shot it on a Galaxy from Kimotsuki (80 km away in a straight line) but had zero time to adjust the exposure~ so it came out kinda sad😅 (Kimotsuki is a town on the Kyushu mainland, across the water from the launch site.)

事前に練習したくても同じくらいの光源ありませんものね。肝付町 (直線距離80km) からGalaxy で撮影しましたが露出を合わせる余裕もなく～なんかしょぼい画像になってしまいました😅

@qFhboufNG9ZoiL6 · View on X

Maybe if I’d left the exposure on auto it would’ve come out darker…. I’ll try again next time! And wow, all the way from Kimotsuki! Good job, Galaxy

露出オートだとまだ暗く撮れてたかもしれません……。また次回がんばります！肝付からすごいですね！Galaxy優秀

Sorry to jump in. Not the H3, but I’ve pulled the same move with the H-IIA and others lol (The H-IIA was the H3’s predecessor and Japan’s workhorse rocket for over twenty years.)

F外失 H3ではありませんが、H-IIAとかではやらかした事がw

@kirishima_ns · View on X

H2 Rocket No. 10 Bad Photo Championship 2

H2ロケット10号機写真下手くそ選手権２

@dml30hs · View on X

Way back when I was a sensitive young second-year in college, this ended up on the cover of our astronomy club’s newsletter for everyone to see…😢

大昔、大学2年のナイーブな青年だった頃、これを天文クラブの機関誌の表紙として拡散され...😢

@fairbanks_m · View on X

Yikes…. I bet the older guys around you were nice about it though

ひえっ……。まわりのおじさま方が優しくしてくれそう

No,,, well,,, it was the other way around. The ones who put it on the cover were the guys who’d later become my seniors at work

いえ、、、その、、、逆っす。未来に職場の先輩になる方たちが載せてくださったわけで

H3 Rocket No. 10 Bad Photo Championship

H3ロケット10号機写真下手くそ選手権

@EDVEGA8823 · View on X

love this. figured actually shooting it has to be way harder than shooting fireworks.

これすき実際撮影したら花火撮るより絶対難しいだろうなと思いました。

That’s close to how it looks to the naked eye. Nice one, I’d say

肉眼で見る印象に近い、ナイスだと思います

Had to laugh because it looks like you could get the same shot by setting down some broccoli and firing a really strong flash at it, but it honestly captures the plain truth lol

ブロッコリー置いて強烈なフラッシュ焚いても撮れそうで笑っちゃったけど、紛れもない真実を捉えた写真ですよね笑

Every time I look back at this photo, it reminds me how bright it was!

写真見返す度に当時の明るさが思い起こされます！

Rocket launches are too bright to look at directly even in the daytime

ロケットの打ち上げは昼間でも直視できないほどまぶしいです

Hi, first time replying. It feels insanely real, I love this photo!

はじめまして。臨場感半端なく凄くてこのお写真好きです！

It honestly felt about this bright, so I tried to get that across! Camera settings for night launches are tough…. I’ll nail it next time!

体感マジでこれくらい明るかったのでそれを表現してみました！夜の打上げはカメラの設定が難しいです……。次は上手く撮ります！

My mom watched the launch on the news and assumed you couldn’t see much because it was dark, so I’m going to show her this photo. In reality it’s so bright you can’t see anything at all.

母がニュースで打上げ、暗くてよく見えないね、と勘違いしていたのでこの写真を見せたいと思います。実際には明るくて全く見えないんですよね。

For like 2 or 3 seconds it really was like midday!

本当に2,3秒ほど真昼みたいでした！

Showed my mom. “Wait, this is at night?” “It’s brighter than daytime!” She was pretty surprised. Thanks, I learned something.

母に見せました。「これ、夜なの？」「昼間より明るいじゃない！」と驚いてました。ありがとうございます、勉強させてもらいました。

My take

People like to say a sight got burned into their eyes. With this much light, I suspect it was not entirely a figure of speech.

Source & translation note

Comments loosely translated for tone. Reactions collected from Togetter and X threads.

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