Ted Kinsman is a scientific photographer that specializes in creating images for books, magazines, and television. His particular areas of interest are in x-ray radiography, high-speed photography, Scanning electron microscopy, and time-lapse cinematography. His work has appeared in numerous books and magazines ranging from Discover Magazine to Forbes. Recently his work has appeared on Gray's Anatomy and CSI New York. In addition to running 
B.N. (Bobbie) Sullivan has a strong affinity for the sea and everything in it. She first learned to dive in 1970 and has since logged thousands of dives. A wish to document the marine life she encountered prompted her to learn underwater photography more than 20 years ago. More recently, she began to write about the marine life she has photographed. A research psychologist by profession, she approaches her subject matter with the mindset of a scientist, but targets her writing to a general readership in whom she hopes to foster an appreciation for the ocean and its inhabitants.
B Jefferson Bolender is Training Coordinator of the State of Arizona's
program for disability awareness and assistive technology. Through
her travels she always has a camera at hand to photograph everything
from people to technology and nature. As a teacher of elementary
education, special education and art, her interests include a wide
array of subject matter with an emphasis on documentation with an
artist's eye.
Steve Jurvetson enjoys rocketry and photography and especially the pursuit of both in the Black Rock Desert. Some action photos and video links can be found 
Alex Wild is a postdoctoral researcher at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign where he works on the molecular phylogenetics of various groups of insects. He is also a part-time photographer whose images appear in such venues as Ranger Rick, Smithsonian, BBC Wildlife, and even ScienceBlogs.
I'll be launching this rocket again on Saturday... well, the upper half of it, which survived unscathed from this dramatic motor rupture a half-mile up in the moonlit sky of the Black Rock Desert:
I just love night launches as you can get a time-lapse capture of the entire rocket flight, especially when something goes haywire.
The Aerotech Green Mojave propellant burned brightly, lighting up the playa and the neighboring launch rails, but it also burned through the center of the forward closure (melting aluminum) and torched the electronics of the bottom section... and even burnt right through the "fire-proof" kevlar that was holding the top and bottom half of the rocket together. So the two sections separate mid-way and both are unstable. The bottom half goes into a corkscrew and then fades to darkness. The nose cone, luckily, is still connected to the HCX flight computer and avionics bay which operates like a charm and detects apogee and pops the chute as programmed (there is a fire-block between the bottom and top half, so the upper half is in perfect shape). Near apogee, there is some white smearing as the parachute deploys with white spotlights illuminating it from below.
Then the nosecone and avionics bay drift back to the playa (to the left) at a fairly constant speed, so the blinking light pattern makes a spiral candy cane in the sky.
Luckily the nose and computer bay survived this launch, and only the bottom half burned out. I built a fiberglass Nike Smoke rocket that will provide a new bottom half for Saturday's night launch. We can rebuild her... We can make her stronger, bigger and blinkier than before...
I was reminded at how tough this little rocket is. In the prior launch, the parachute charge did not ignite and so it lawn-darted into the desert playa. In that flight, it only lost the nose cone. That is quite a ballistic impact into hard clay. You can see those photos at the bottom of my EMRR rocket review. I built a new nose cone and added an avionics bay section for a flight computer since that review (I did not want to rely on motor ejection again for parachute deployment).
Photo details: 14 second exposure, f2.8, 16mm, ISO 800 Canon 5D, bulb mode, manual focus done earlier when the sun was still up... and the horizon could still be seen and made level. I knew where the moon would rise (roughly) from the prior night. So I left my tripod there for a few hours until it got dark enough. Single digital exposure, no Photoshop as with all my shots. I held it open in bulb mode with manual focus and went with my gut on the settings. The first shot was way overexposed. And the next two took my breath away. I like this one the most; it was the third of the bunch, and I was trying to use the red moon to light up the scattered clouds a bit more... and I had the rare benefit (photographically speaking =) that my rocket motor ruptured mid flight !
Technology
Physical Science
Comments
Absolutely beautiful! I'd love to see more time lapse photography of launches like this.
Posted by: Eronarn | May 15, 2009 1:45 AM
Pretty hard for us non-rocket non-scientists to figure out the scale of this picture...
At what altitude did the sections go their separate ways?
Posted by: Pierce R. Butler | May 15, 2009 9:17 AM
Love the shot! What all lighting the parachute trip back to firma? (some LEDs on the flight avionics maybe?)
Also, about shipping these engines around, I'm guessing they can't retail them through USPS. Do they have a special shipping service?
Posted by: Spiv | May 15, 2009 10:19 AM
Eronarn - you got it. I'll see what I can capture Saturday, and pull a sampler together.
Pierce - It's tough for all of us. The 16mm wide angle lens captures a huge piece of the sky. It was about 2000 ft up. If it had not had a "premature evacuation", the rocket would have streaked off the frame.
Spiv - G size motors and below can be shipped fairly normally. The bigger motors have a hazmat fee and must ship ground transport (not too expensive though). For the O size motors and above, it's nuts and the shipping fees exceed the cost of the motor. O motors are used as cruise missile boosters. They have to shut down traffic in both directions on all bridges that the shipping truck crosses! So, most people brew their own motors at that size (you have to anyway for a Q or R motor).
Posted by: Jurvetson | May 15, 2009 1:25 PM
spiv - forgot to answer the lighting question. Yes, it has 22 dancing LED triplet lights in the nose and body, and a custom mod of 4 super-bright white LEDs to light up the white satin parachute.
You can see it dancing here: www.flickr.com/photos/jurvetson/859477057/#comment72157600954022324
Posted by: Jurvetson | May 15, 2009 5:38 PM
Stunning photo, in so many ways.
Posted by: atanas entchev | May 15, 2009 7:45 PM
Spiv - G size motors and below can be shipped fairly normally. The bigger motors have a hazmat fee and must ship ground transport (not too expensive though). For the O
Posted by: porno izle | January 13, 2010 11:43 PM
Photo details: 14 second exposure, f2.8, 16mm, ISO 800 Canon 5D, bulb mode, manual focus done earlier when the sun was still up... and the horizon could still be seen and made level. I knew where the moon would rise (roughly) from the prior night. So I left my tripod there for a few hours until it got dark enough. Single digital exposure, no Photoshop as with all my shots. I held it open in bulb mode with manual focus and went with my gut on the settings. The first shot was way overexposed. And the next two took my breath away. I like this one the most; it was the third of the bunch, and I was trying to use the red moon to light up the scattered clouds a bit more... and I had the rare benefit (photographically speaking =) that my rocket motor ruptured mid flight !
thanks...
Posted by: megadosya | May 12, 2010 7:39 AM