As part of the Missile Defense System testing, a Minuteman II missile was launched at Vandenberg AFB in California. Having no advance knowledge of this test, seeing the initial vapor trail out of the corner of my eye light up the otherwise dark sky of the Nevada high dessert was a bit alarming. [Did the president confuse the Play Station II with the nuclear football?] The only high speed film at my disposal was Kodak Portra 400 BW, an unusual black and white film the has it's origins in the filming of above-ground nuclear blasts at the nearby Nevada Test Site. [Queen City Summit, a high spot on the ET Highway, often received fallout from these blasts.] While I loaded the camera, the second stage went off. While the first stage of the missile launch was enough to draw my attention away from the "operation near Groom Lake", the second stage was an order of magnitude more brilliant.
This photograph was done at 1/2 second exposure, hand-held though leaning on the roof of a truck to get as steady of a shot as possible without a tripod. The camera is tilted a bit to fit the second stage glow into the photo. Note there are also two curly vapor trails at the center of the photograph. They don't appear to be artifacts of photography, but I have no explanation for them.
This photograph was done with the camera mounted on a tripod, probably 5 minutes after the previous photograph. Note the large glow in the center of the photograph, plus an additional fainter vapor trail tops the top. The exposure time was not recorded, but the camera was set for normal exposure with ISO 400 film. [Probably 2 seconds exposure.]
Chromogenic films such as Kodak Portra 400 BW have a wide exposure latitude, meaning you vary the exposure time a great deal and still get acceptable results. This feature can be exploited to simulate "night vision" photography by overexposing the image. Using more standard films, the sky would be totally blown out if overexposed, but the chromogenic film still retains detail in the sky while simultaneously recording a useable image in the normally blacked out areas of the photograph (if normally exposed.) In the case of this photograph, the camera was set for ISO 50, over-exposing the photograph by 3 stops. Though not really useful in viewing the missile test part of the image, it does allow the nearby scenery to be illuminated in the photograph.
