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jonah

Here's a photo I took of the ascent from about 50 miles east.

http://imgur.com/a/RlJUR

(Nikon D7000, 300mm, handheld. Cropped and adjusted for contrast.)

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Here's a few I took 3.9 miles away...with a much cheaper camera. (:

https://www.realms.org/pics/spacex/IMG_1152.JPG https://www.realms.org/pics/spacex/IMG_1158.JPG https://www.realms.org/pics/spacex/IMG_1195.JPG https://www.realms.org/pics/spacex/IMG_1205.JPG https://www.realms.org/pics/spacex/IMG_1208.JPG https://www.realms.org/pics/spacex/IMG_1209.JPG

It was extremely loud. It was my first launch, and it was surprising. You could feel your chest rumbling, and the car I was standing next to was visibly vibrating.

Freaking amazing experience!

This is where we were standing: https://goo.gl/maps/1eAurqSuD722

> "The best zoom lens is your legs"

Very cool! One of these days I'll get out there for a launch. Did you come down just to watch it? Must have been need to be with all those other people.

Yup, we drove down from Mountain View the night before.

We did stop by Solving on the way back, which was pretty fun.

Impressive. The flame looks about 4.6 times the length of the rocket (measured with the edge of a spoon equaling the height of the rocket) and about 4 times its diameter at the flame's base. Falcon9 is about 70m with a 4m diameter? This makes the trailing flame 322m long and 16m wide at the base.

Imagine an erect column of fire with a 16m base that goes up 322m... That'd be an awesome thing.

Nice picture; could you hear it from that distance?

(I'm very jealous; I'd love to see a launch, but neither Switzerland nor the UK have functioning space programs, and French Guiana is a bit far too walk...)

Thanks. I've been able to catch a few launches over the years. (I even heard the Shuttle's sonic boom once.)

I didn't hear it going up but there was a loud rumble on the return. (Which I couldn't see from my vantage point.)

Are you accounting for the speed of sound? The distance to the launch site of 50mi would be about 4 minutes of delay (getting longer as it flies South)

Hearing the landing over 400km away (or even boost back burns which started about 4.5 minutes and several hundred km down range, plus whatever altitude it attained) seems odd if you didn't hear all 9 engines going up.

Oh, yeah. You're likely right. I wasn't keeping close watch on the time as I had my hands full with a radio, live stream on my phone, and the camera.

Ism not the original person, but I live in Santa Barbara (about 60 miles away). You can definitely hear the rumble, delayed by several minutes. The launches at the middle of the night are the best since it's so quiet.

Come to Florida. Plenty of launches there year-round! And lots of places to stand and watch. Can take a tour of the complex before or after as well. It's truly a great experience!

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