Shuttle-747 landing | Good thing I'm not lazy

Shuttle Endeavour and its NASA transport, a 747, turns toward Cape Canaveral as it reaches the open ocean.

I knew it was supposed to happen, but my laziness was getting the better of me.

I woke up today, and The Flame Trench, FLORIDA TODAY's space team blog, said shuttle Endeavour was due back at Kennedy Space Center around 2:15 p.m. Weather forced the orbiter to land Nov. 30 in California on its return trip from the International Space Station. It had been riding on a 747 for the last few days en route to KSC.

The Flame Trench said low-level clouds could hinder the view as the piggybacking shuttle came in for a landing. I didn't want to take the chance of driving to the coast and coming up empty.

So, rather seeing a tremendous site, I wanted to drink my coffee. It was 2 p.m. when I got a text message from the space reporters saying that the shuttle would take a route along the beach, giving spectators the best view possible. And the clouds had cleared. But still, I didn't want to give up my coffee.































Then I thought, TRAVEL MUG!

It was perfect. I dumped the coffee into its new container, grabbed my camera and sped for the beach near Patrick Air Force Base.

I arrived, and cars were everywhere. I had not foreseen the popularity of the occasion. Most of the people who made it were old; everyone else was working (except the losers, like me, who work nights).

Some old people saw a plane and said, "Look, there it is." False alarm.

Some younger people saw a plane and said, "Look, there it is." False alarm.

Some other people saw a plane and said, "Look, there it is." Third time's a charm.

The 747 and Endeavour crossed perpendicular to the beach. I couldn't have picked a more perfect spot. It then turned and paralleled the shoreline the rest of the way to the three-mile landing strip at the space center.

Paralleling the beach.

Shuttle launch teaches lesson in time-exposure photography

I was the "late" person tonight at work, so I had to stay there until about 1:15 a.m. But I left a bit early and hightailed it up to Titusville's Space View Park to watch my first night launch (actually, at 2:28 a.m., it's an early morning launch) of a space shuttle. This one was Endeavour, STS-123.

And I couldn't believe the traffic, considering the hour. It was 100 times worse than my last launch, Atlantis, which was in the afternoon.

But it was magnificent.

Unfortunately, my photos don't show that. Take a look:

I thought I had the exposure right in the above photo. This was a test. You can see the strobes shining upward and the launch pad at their origin. I've taken great photos of lightning that lit the entire night sky as though it were daylight. And most of those photos were about a six-second exposure. The ones above and below are 10 seconds, but because I'm photographing something less brilliant than lightning, I thought the shuttle would be clearly visible. Instead, I got a whiteout, below. You never can estimate the brightness of such an event until you see it for yourself. Now, I know. I got another one that was better exposed, but I took it at a different lens power, and I forgot to focus it. Duh.

The cloud cover was very low, so my opportunity to get a clear shot of the shuttle was very narrow. And I wasted it all on that one whitewash of a photo. The one above doesn't really show much more than the low-level clouds and the plume Endeavour created.



This is the photo I mentioned earlier. It's about a six-second exposure on film. The lightning spread across the entire sky, lighting up the surroundings like sunlight - but for only a fraction of a second. That the shuttle's luminance was more sustained could be the reason for my photography flop.

It's a good thing Endeavour didn't blow up. If it had, I wouldn't have been able to handle the photo. Next time, I might look up the proper exposure on the Google, or maybe I'll ask a few professionals for some advice. Ah, the benefits of being the son of a professional photographer.