It seems like amateur astronomers could have anticipated where and when it would happen.
Did anyone actually do it?
Seems extremely unlikely, since the capsules landed in the middle of the Pacific Ocean. I don’t think any NASA footage even exists.
There are a lot of amateur observations of the Apollo missions listed here. Bill Keel's Space Bits - Tracking the Apollo Flights
Skimming the page quickly, I found these two re-entry sightings.
Cool. I didn’t know of those incidents.
Damned cool.
I’m one of many who saw shuttles coming in, when they were sent on the high-ecliptic approach to a Florida landing. Columbia was a huge magenta comet, right overhead… but I didn’t learn for hours that it was already breaking up. But to see an Apollo capsule coming in… holy chute.
I seem to recall TV footage of the re-entry of the Apollo missions. I don’t think Apollo 11 was caught before the chutes opened, but by the latter missions, they were pretty good at being able to control where it would land and had cameras on AF helicopters to record the event.