Clyde Tombaugh did that for a while during the early years of American rocketry. He actually designed some of the first rocket tracking telescopes, IIRC. On Thu, Mar 12, 2015 at 9:21 PM, Dion Davidson via Utah-Astronomy < utah-astronomy@mailman.xmission.com> wrote:

I just watched the live broadcast of the MMS launch which was amazing. I couldn't get enough of the close-up video of the rocket as it left. Does anyone here know how they get that footage? Computer-controlled telescopes with fancy video cameras mounted? Do they use filters? It seems the brightness of the rocket would wash out any hope of seeing the craft, yet there it is. I'm thinking when I get tired of commercial insurance I want to do that for a living - tracking rocket launches with fancy video and optical equipment.