/sci/ - Science & Math

The 1925 NYC eclipse :-
After the Moon’s shadow passed over Manhattan, it was another second before it was over the eastern end of Long Island and the dirigible Los Angeles. The scientists onboard had made the last adjustments to their equipment. There was a battery of cameras loaded with a various types of film so that different aspects of the eclipse could be captured. There were electrical and magnetic receivers to record any sudden changes in those fields. The junior officers had been assigned to assist the scientists. They would record the readings of dials. Some had been given instructions on how to sketch the eclipse and were told to note whether any comets were near the Sun.
But the man who had the most challenging—and, in the opinion of those on onboard, the most enviable—task was Navy Chief Quartermaster Alvin Peterson. The Navy’s best and most experienced aerial photographer, his assignment was to climb to the top of the dirigible and do what no one had ever done: take a motion picture of a total solar eclipse.

Access to the top was through a vertical shaft that ran the hundred feet from the top of the gondola to the top of the dirigible where there was a trapdoor that opened to the outside. Peterson made his way up by use of a ladder attached to the wall of the shaft. He carried a tripod, a movie camera, and several reels of film, including one that had been sensitized to low light that he would use during the darkness of the eclipse.
About an hour before the Moon’s shadow would pass over him, he opened the trapdoor and set up his tripod and camera. The wind was a steady forty miles per hour. The air temperature was somewhere far below zero. Twice someone climbed up to check on him and offered to relieve him. But he wanted to see it through. In all, he would spend more than two hours standing on the top of the dirigible.

not spaceflight but I have to share this great article on supersonic airliners with /sfg/
https://www.construction-physics.com/p/why-did-supersonic-airliners-fail

>>16051841
Yeah they're aiming at Mach 1.4 for mitigation designs iirc. Twice the speed of current passenger jets is cool but its slower than Concorde. Worthwhile but not a revolution like Mach 5 would be.

>>15462228
>two socialst run countries
Having a bit more welfare provision than the US did at the time doesn't make them socialist

>>14573323
It was interesting to see contradictory answers on Wikipedia, but as it turns out its just astronomer autism >>14573354. Thank

>>14536371
>3 ton shield
why