I am fortunate to live in the Tampa area. Whenever there is a space launch, we go online to watch the countdown, and then sit in our back lanai and see it live as it happens.

Most launches happen at night, so the sky begins to glow about 45 seconds after launch. It is awe inspiring.

Mike Dippel
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On 21 Nov 2021 at 03:09a, Mike Dippel pondered and said...

I am fortunate to live in the Tampa area. Whenever there is a space launch, we go online to watch the countdown, and then sit in our back lanai and see it live as it happens.

Most launches happen at night, so the sky begins to glow about 45
seconds after launch. It is awe inspiring.

I really like all things Space :)

Been following NASA efforts and more recently SpaceX stuff for many years.

Do you see the SpaceX stuff from where you are or is that too far away?

Sorry I'm a n00b with geography :)

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Re: Re: Space Launches
By: Avon to Mike Dippel on Tue Nov 23 2021 04:58 pm

We've seen every space lauch out of Cape Canaveral from our back yard. A daytime launch is harder to see, but my 44 year old son can spot it in the sky well before his parents can :)

We even saw the space station orbit past us one time. It was daytime and harder to see, but we saw it.

We actually went to the Cape yeras ago for the last official government space launch. There was so much traffic that we had to park our car in the street because traffic completely blocked the road. We were approx 1 mile away from the launch site. Beautiful!

Mike Dippel
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On 23 Nov 2021 at 08:19a, Mike Dippel pondered and said...

We've seen every space lauch out of Cape Canaveral from our back yard. A daytime launch is harder to see, but my 44 year old son can spot it in
the sky well before his parents can :)

I'm jealous :)

All of my 'experiences' are based on watching live stream coverage on the Internet which I have to say is far better than days of old when you hoped free to air TV networks would cover something. But going back to the 80s then yep it was the telly for me, watching shuttle launches etc. live when they were being broadcast.

We even saw the space station orbit past us one time. It was daytime and harder to see, but we saw it.

I have an app that lets me know for the coming 10 days when the ISS will pass nearby and what it's brightness will be. I often go outside in the evening to watch it whiz by for 3-6 mins :) It's cool.

As a ham radio operator (ZL4PH) I have also worked the repeater gear on the ISS when it has passed over and made contact with other New Zealand based radio operators also listening and working the ISS gear's frequencies.

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