Outstanding. My Wife's best friend's Husband has a payload on this and was/is actively monitoring its progress.
Wish him luck! He works years on these things before they go anywhere...
Yeah, it was good to see it successfully launch. The trick to viewing it seemed to be to watch for the launch on NASA TV, then immediately go outside and look for it. We're north of Philly and we could see it. It was orange in color. At first it was a little brighter than a planet, then it faded to bright star intensity as it rose into the heavens and finally faded out as headed towards orbit. Very cool.
Tell your wife to pass on our best wishes. I've always viewed space exploration as one of mankind's nobler efforts.
I was very interested in the American space program. My brother-in-law works on equipment for spacecraft. I liked the manned space program but I found the unmanned space program even more interesting. Spacecraft have now traveled to or around or near almost every planet in the Solar System.
For the amount of money that has been spent on the unmanned space program it was probably one of the best investments the USA ever made.
Launch was visible, though first I was looking at the wrong thing (a plane flying away with a vapor trail). Soon saw the right one and got some photos.
Just after a separation, note the faint second item in the top right, it is brighter on my retina display, but I think compression washes it out:
Then flying away...
Of course they were way zoomed (300mm lens on a 36MP camera).
Here is the raw image of the last shot I took:
Photobucket compresses them funny, but you can still make everything out.
Dec 15th is the next scheduled launch from Wallops. It will be an Antares rocket delivering supplies for the ISS. Hopefully the sky will be clear then.