Comment by myself248 | Hacker News Reader

Comment by myself248 | Hacker News Reader

I was at the first FH launch, at the turn-basin viewing area, because a friend of mine works for NASA and got the good, good, good tickets.

I decided to heed the "experience it with your eyes, not through a phone" advice, so the only cameras I set up were fixed on tripods and not guided. I bought a thermal camera some time back, and it dawned on me that I'd never seen civilian thermal video of a launch, so I decided to give it a try:

https://www.eevblog.com/forum/thermal-imaging/thermal-imagin...

Apparently I wasn't the only one with that idea -- scroll down two more messages in that thread, and the OTHER civilian thermal video of that very same launch, was shot by another reader of the same forum, a few feet away at the same area!

I had another camera facing the crowd, to capture the faces and the oohs and aahs, but the footage sucked. They had speakers set up that pipe in the countdown audio, which is all well and good, but then they made the inane decision to pipe in the sound of SpaceX's own throng cheering, with way too much gain, so it just made the entire audio experience a clipped screaming mess.

I stepped away from the speakers to experience the rocket myself, and I'm glad I did.

Now there's something you don't hear everyday -- "would'ya turn down the audio? I can barely hear the HEAVY LIFT ROCKET ENGINE blasting off in front of me!"

How loud must the speakers be to drown out a rocket engine firing which, outside of nuclear blasts, meteorites and volcanoes, are among the loudest possible sounds?

It didn't drown it out, exactly. Just crapped it up.

Edit but can't edit: I realized I have a photo of how close I was to the speaker: https://www.flickr.com/photos/myself248/31682309057/

That's the FLIR (which, inexplicably, lacks a tripod mount) gently wedged between the leg and the ball-head, and then USB cabled down to my laptop (not in this photo) running Cheese because, again, the camera cannot natively record video...

Anyway, the rocket was 2 miles away, and competed pretty well with a speaker 5 feet away. But getting 15 feet from the speaker really improved the experience.

Great photo -- now I get it!

I was imagining elevated speakers a few hundred feet away similar to an outdoor concert, but that's a 100+ watt PA speaker at face level almost within reach.

Thank you for sharing. What an experience you had!!

I shot the F9 SSO-A launch with my FLIR One back in December. Visually it was about the same as yours, but what was surprising how well the iPhone picked up the low frequency rumbles. Playing it back on a stereo with a subwoofer was entertaining.

After being to several launches both watching and photographing, I'd advise first timers to watch with their eyes first too. The flame plume is a very bright, oddly "rich colored", orange fire that video just can't capture. 60 seconds later it's all over, it's hard to watch both the rocket and viewfinder.

The other thing was getting there and seeing people with lenses so big the camera hung from the lens, not the other way around. Good, they've got this handled, I can sit back and enjoy the experience.

Come to think of it, I did shoot some lazy phone video too (I'll just hold this to my chest and aim it in the general direction of the rocket, but not pay attention to the viewfinder because I'm looking with my eyes), and I haven't watched it on anything but the phone. Perhaps I should transfer that over to something with better speakers.. :)

I was on cocoa beach for the FH demo flight. As hard as I tried to experience it with my eyes I couldn’t help but try to take some video. But it’s true what they say - one or the other. Make your decision to watch or film but don’t do both! I would say if you don’t have a tracking tripod forget the video and just watch a replay when you get back home.

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