Ugh. 12 miles out, 20x zoom, consumer camera, a good deal of wind... this video did not come out well at all. Even the audio stinks because of all the noise.

Add in the lovely full moon rising over the ocean and the gorgeous illumination of the high-cirrus clouds absolutely aflame with a surreal flickering orange glow, horizon to horizon and, well, I gave up and yielded to the experience. I guarantee there will be some spectacular stills that someone shot of this from our vantage, but the video can't do it justice. Even NASA's official video did not capture the event. Someone with decent gear should have shot this one wide and on film.

Lesson Learned: Shoot wide, lock everything down and enjoy the launch. See my other video for an example of how amateurs should do it ( vimeo.com/776048 ) !