Rapatronic High Speed Shutter

[Mike O'Dell]

Edgerton's company was EG&G

they specialized in all sorts of extremely curious
devices, the Rapatronic cameras are but one.
most of their wares, though, have something to do
with a *lot* of energy doing something in a *very*
short time. the company is still around.

on Nova last night, David Pogue visited "Strobe Alley"
in the Edgerton Lab at MIT. turns out Edgerton was
Pogue's great uncle and as a kid he got to hang around
the strobe lab.

sigh
	-mo


On 1/21/11 1:47 PM, fgentges at mindspring.com wrote:
> Mike and all tacoistas,
>
> It is an interesting evolution of high speed photography that occurred
> during WW2 during and after the Manhattan project.
>
> A specialized group was formed during the project to specialize in
> instrumentation needed for the project. I think the group became known
> as Sandia and was involved in developing photographic diagnostics along
> with many other instruments. Dr. Edgerton, MIT was key to this and came
> up with all sorts of nifty devices.
>
> After the war he developed a very high speed shutter based on the kerr
> cell that could be opened for only a very few microseconds. The kerr
> cell looked like a capacitor and needed a high speed high voltage pulse
> to open and close it. The camera/shutter was called rapatronic. You can
> see some really short pictures of a nuclear weapon in the early phases
> of the explosion. A good web page is at
>
> http://simplethinking.com/home/rapatronic_photographs.htm
>
> Navy used similar shutters in conjunction with short pulse lasers to see
> through murky water. By opening the shutter just as the light from an
> object of interest rejects all the light from the water's murkiness.
>
> Those books you mention are very interesting and well worth checking
> out. Some of the best pictures used are on the web. A nice bunch of
> surfing when there is too much snow to go outside.
>
>
> Frank K0BRA
>
>
> On 1/21/2011 8:11 AM, Mike O'Dell wrote:
>> there are two wonderful books which contains previously unclassified
>> pictures and a comprehensive discussion of the techniques used
>> to capture them. the titles are:
>>
>> "How to Photograph an Atomic Bomb"
>> and
>> "100 Suns"
>>
>> i highly recommend them for those interested in
>> *ultra*high-speed photography and the force that drove development
>>
>>
>> -mo
>>
>>
>> On 1/21/11 11:03 AM, fgentges at mindspring.com wrote:
>>> This is a great view of lightning sending out probes in the area and
>>> then it finds the best path and then *boom* the main stroke.
>>>
>>> Often, antennas are struck by the probes and not the main stroke but it
>>> can damage receivers etc.
>>>
>>> I do not see high speed cameras like this on eBay for $200 from Hong
>>> Kong.
>>>
>>> Frank
>>>
>>>
>>> On 1/20/2011 8:38 PM, Richard Barth wrote:
>>>> http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-bvmEYxEYiA
>>>>
>>>> Richard Barth *** W3HWN(at)ARRL.NET *** Silver Spring, MD
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