#rapatronic

[loud-brain]

Rapatronic camera image of atom bomb test. I don’t know the year. Notice the Joshua Tree silhouettes visible in the foreground.  

[samwardell-blog]

[restricteddata]

Nuclear test Plumbbob Whitney, 1957. An electrical discharge caused by the ionization of air is visible in this Rapatronic camera photo. 

[restricteddata]

The first nanoseconds of nuclear explosions, as captured with Rapatronic cameras.

[low-uv-blog]

Atomic Bomb explosions,  Harold Edgerton, 1952

"After World War II, the Atomic Energy Commission contracted Edgerton, Germeshausen, and Grier to photograph atomic bombs as they exploded.  How to deal with the blinding light, the need to be miles away from the explosion, and the speed of the nuclear reaction in the bomb were problems the trio were asked to solve.  The solution was the rapatronic (for Rapid Action Electronic) shutter, a shutter with no moving parts that could be opened and closed by turning a magnetic field on and off.  The duration of the exposure was as little as two microseconds."

[krim-daily]

Harold EdgertonThe rapatronic camera is a high-speed camera capable of recording a still image with an exposure time as brief as 10 nanoseconds (billionths of a second)

[maschup]

wikipi:"Nuclear explosion photographed by rapatronic camera less than 1 millisecond after detonation. From the Tumbler-Snapper test series in Nevada, 1952. The fireball is about 20 meters in diameter in this shot. The spikes at the bottom of the fireball are known as the rope trick effect."

[4angstroms]

Rapatronic photographs

Developed by Dr. Harold Edgerton in the 1940s, the Rapatronic photographic technique allowed very early times in a nuclear explosion's fireball growth to be recorded on film. The exposures were often as short as 10 nanoseconds, and each Rapatronic camera would take exactly one photograph. A bank of four to ten or more such cameras were arranged at tests to record different moments of early fireball growth.

The peculiar spikes are extensions of the fireball surface along ropes or cables that stretch from the shot cab (the housing for the test device at the top of the tower) to the ground. This novel phenomenon was named a "rope trick" by Dr. John Malik who investigated it. The photos are by Harold Edgerton aka “Papa Flash” who is famed for using Stroboscopic photography to photograph discrete instances of the everyday - balloons bursting, divers diving into pools, milk drops. These photos were taken using another of Edgerton’s inventions, the Rapatronic camera - capable of taking photographs with exposure times of 10 nanoseconds and are far from everday occurences.