Before anybody gets too upset, the camera was really nowhere near the cupola.  Photographers use compression all the time – it’s what makes objects in z-space look so much closer than they really are.  A longer lens will make the objects’ relative size so drastically different and they appear closer to each other.  I was using a 400mm lens (which, on my crop frame camera is essentially a 640mm lens).  I was probably 40-50 meters away from it.

I always err on the side of caution. I quickly grabbed this shot and then got the heck out of there.