Exploring the Suffolk Virginia Night Sky – Astronomy, Astrophotography, Telescopes, EAA – Planets and Stars and Nebula and Galaxies – Looking, Learning, Sharing… Let's see what we can see…
Not in the Suffolk Sky, but still pretty neat. We were down in Ormand Beach, FL for Biketoberfest. For the past 24 years or so we have road down to Biketoberfest and every year we check the launch schedule. We have been able to witness several launches over the years, but this was the first night launch we have had a chance to view. A SpaceX Falcon 9 lifted off from the Cape Canaveral Space Launch Complex 40 (SLC-40) at 9:58 PM EDT on 10/13/2025 carrying a payload of Kuiper broadband internet satellites.
I captured this video of the first stage of the flight from Ormond Beach, FL. I was not ready for it… I did not realize we were going to be able to see it so well, so I was a little late to get the camera going. At the initial lighting of the rocket the horizon lit up and it almost looked like the Sun was rising. I started to capture the video with the iPhone just after liftoff and followed it through the first stage.
We also were able to see the re-entry burn of the 1st stage off in the distance, but the drone ship, ‘A Shortfall of Gravitas,’ was below the horizon so we were not able to see the final landing burn.
