Shuttle Launch....

[Railroader]

Night launches are awesome!....Me and the wife just watched it from my front porch....250 MILES from The Cape...:eek:

Too danged cool!:cool:

[sprtsracer]

Just watched it from Daytona! Went to NASA's web site and watched the countdown, as well as all the live video feed of the astronauts getting suited up, etc, and also watched the coverage of the local TV Stations at the same time. At launch, went out front of the house and saw the most awesome launch I have ever seen. What a beautiful site. I could eyeball the separation of the two booster rockets and see them falling away, glowing as they dropped off, and could still see the main engines burning as the shuttle continued to climb. It must have lasted at least 5 minutes or more before it disappeared from sight. Makes me glad I live in Florida and more importantly, that I live in this country. Kinda makes everything else pale in comparison. What a night; what a launch; what a beautiful sight!!!

[VICIII]

We were ready about twenty of us and the dam clouds got in the way... Not much a orange glow even.... what a bummer...
I was in Daytona once on spring break and the whole sky lit up... it lit up the beach and was great...

[Railroader]

Once the SRB's went out, that was it for us...

Wife was trying to get a pic, but the batteries in the camera were shot....:rolleyes:

I'm curious how far away it's possible to see it...Like I said, I'm 250 miles away, and can see just about any launch day or night, as long as the sky is clear.

So....Who's got the record for the farthest naked eye sighting???

[sprtsracer]

Only thing I know is that the local news station (Channel 2, WESH) out of Orlando said it was visible for "hundreds of miles". How many hundreds is the question, I guess. Of course, it's hard to judge from the ground, but it appeared that the launch was headed Northeast, so I would hope that quite a bit of the Eastern Seaboard was able to see it, albeit closer to the horizon the farther North they were. I'd be interested to know the farthest point as well. How far North were you, RR?

[sprtsracer]

OOps, just noticed the 250 mile mark in your post. I would guess that one could have seen it off the coast of South Carolina at least, if not the Outer Banks.
P.S. The other thing is that in Daytona, we can also HEAR it, even though there is a slight delay.

[RuddeDogg]

That has git to be one HELL of a ride. :D :D

[kingfish]

I missed the launch tonight, but I have seen it before, I'm about a mile South of the North Carolina line..............Hate I missed it, I was watching when they scrubbed a couple of nights ago.

[emanuel]

I heard it was seen as far away as Virginia Beach. I was about 5 or 6 miles from the launch site, sitting on my friend's dock on the Indian River. That was my first launch up close and I was not disappointed.

[barty b]

We were on the Jax beach pier, All we saw was an orange ground glow a quick 2 sec lift and then the clouds. 20 sec later a little screaming white dot tracking ENE. Pretty anticlimactic if you ask me, Of course I am spoiled after seeing two from a boat in the indian river and 1 from mosquito lagoon.

[JUST-IN-TIME]

http://www.onewolf.net/images/shuttle116a.jpg