In talking to a friend of mine who works at the Kennedy Space Center she said the RSS rollback takes around 30-45 minutes. So I wanted to correct my previous post and say the exposure took 30-45 minutes and not 90 minutes.
Thank you all for your comments. Tom, it has been a while since I shot this image, but as I recall this exposure took 90 minutes. The RSS is the rotating service structure that fits around the space shuttle while the shuttle is at the pad. It allows crews to work on the orbiter as well as its payload while the shuttle is at the launch pad. It also protects the shuttle from the elements. The night before a launch the RSS is rolled back. During this rollback the lights illuminating the shuttle the night before a launch were off until just before the RSS made it all the way to its retracted position, then they started turning the lights on one at a time. I had to cover the lens, (I choose to cover the lens instead of closing it and reopening it to lessen the chance for any camera movement), and then I waited for all the light to be turned on. As soon as all the lights were on I recalculated the exposure and uncovered the lens and finshed taking the image. I like the moon as well, but I have a 20x24 printed without the moon and the negative space seems to work well since it represents the black void of space which goes well with the space shuttle.
Nice concept of radial movement. It illustrates the turning of the shuttle really good. Good choice also to add the moon - the shuttle gets a goal, the picture a story and the otherwise quite big black space on the right is tamed. Do you remember how long you exposed this one? As far as I know it takes hours to move these things just a few metres.
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