My three images of the NASA comet sampling mission's return to Utah. The capsule returned to Earth in the middle of the night on January 15th, 2006, reentering the atmosphere at the record highest-speed of any man-made object.

While looking north-west, I saw what I thought was an aircraft moving very fast... I then realized I was seeing the reentry & quickly propped my camera on the railing and fired off three camera shots.

The calibration images are used to make the photos more useful to NASA's scientists. All photos are unedited, original images. RAW format is available by email.

Learn more about this mission at http://stardust.jpl.nasa.gov/home/index.html and http://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/stardust/main/index.html

Just so you don't think I'm the only person looking up at 3 in the morning, check out http://www.frappr.com/stardustobservers

Other Images of reentry at http://dgilbert3.home.mindspring.com/stardust.htm and http://reentry.arc.nasa.gov/gallery1.html
See Video of the capsule's landing at http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/help/3681938.stm