Does anybody know of a good link which provides extended footage of the detonation of a Hydrogen Bomb. I have been able to find 3 or 4 second clips on the web but I was wondering if there was anything more thorough. Thanks
There’s a good documentary that has tons of footage called Trinity and Beyond. Would be worth your while to try and rent it.
I bought this movie and it is really good. It starts by showing you what 100 tons of TNT looks like when it blows up. From there they go to various fission and fusion devices. They tell what the size of the device is as well. Plus it has a few sequences in 3-D.
Nukes, 3-D and Shatner. It is the entertainment trifecta.
How do they film some of those tests? Obviously the mushroom cloud shot is from far far away in a bunker, but I’m talking about the shots where you see an empty house get flattened or something close up. Are they simply filming through high-powered binoculars or a telescope?
Very heavily shielded cameras, I would imagine.
The link above should take you to a selection of atomic bomb testing footage.
There’s a “sequel” to Trinity and Beyond: The Atomic Bomb Movie called The Atomic Filmmakers or something like that. It’s not listed in IMDB.com, even though PBS has aired the film. It goes into details of the types of cameras that were used. Some of the shots were done with telephoto lenses, and others of them were done with well protected cameras. It’s fairly easy to calculate the effects of a nuclear blast and they placed the cameras which were going to be in the effect radius far enough away from ground zero that they weren’t vaporized.
Bravo!
Bikini Atoll gets erased.
The only moving pictures I recall (in that test) are from distant aircraft and feature tiny little aircraft carriers and battleships in the forefront (still dozens of leagues from the former atoll).
The problem with H-bombs is you need to be really far away to get a good shot. Even then, a remote camera is going to go black with a blast that fills the horizon.
“I am become Death”
- oppenheimer / Bhagvad Gita
Not video footage, but here are some interesting pictures of an atomic blast, taken with very quick exposures.