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Placing My Camera Lens 300 Feet from a Rocket Launch
- mrbill 9y agoA friend mentioned that in the high-dollar government lab he works in, they use a blast shield and a mirror in these applications. Mirror is a lot cheaper to replace than some of their lenses.
- hinkley 9y agoBut it does make it harder to stabilize the image. Especially when the decibels are high like in a launch.
- raverbashing 9y agoIt's a daylight photo, use a fast shutter
- donquichotte 9y agoWow, those images are gorgeous. "We were warned by our NASA escort to not touch our faces after handling equipment coated in the solid rocket exhaust and to wash our hands ASAP after arriving back at the KSC Press Site." Next picture: touches exhaust residue with bare hands. Please, use gloves! "Using a glass filter triples the area that dew can form prior to liftoff." A-ha, it is time to start building heated glass filters for rocket photography enthusiasts!
- wlesieutre 9y ago"Dew heaters" are already a thing! http://philhart.com/content/dew-heaters-night-sky-photography http://philhart.com/content/dew-heaters-night-sky-photograph... https://www.amazon.com/COOWOO-Warmer-Heater-Universal-Telescopes/dp/B01MR2J4NK https://www.amazon.com/COOWOO-Warmer-Heater-Universal-Telesc... From the reddit thread where the photographer posted this, they're planning to get some: https://www.reddit.com/r/photography/comments/81fu6u/the_results_of_placing_a_fisheye_lens_just_over/dv2yu3w/?context=1 https://www.reddit.com/r/photography/comments/81fu6u/the_res...
- alex_hitchins 9y agoWhat would the substances have been on the glass? I assume it would be something nasty but my chemistry is poor. Also, do workers wear haz-mat suits when working in the area? I'd guess there is a lot of the same stuff on the ground/atmosphere that could be inhaled. The ecological damage of launches is something I should really look more in to.
- packetized 9y agoHTPB, unburnt ammonium perchlorate, aluminum powder. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hydroxyl-terminated_polybutadiene https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hydroxyl-terminated_polybutadi...
- ridgeguy 9y agoAnd the combustion products include lots of water and hydrogen chloride, which combine to form hydrochloric acid. The gritty aluminum oxide (another combustion product) is probably a pretty good particulate sponge for holding acid as it cools below HCl's condensation point.
- alex_hitchins 9y agoThanks both for the reply. Is the Aluminimum oxide forming part of a thermite style reaction then?
- Taniwha 9y agoonly to the extend that the Al powder in the motor is burning in the O2 released from the perchlorate, it'[s not an exchange like a traditional thermite Essentially they add Al because it burns well and has a high mass which ups the mass of the exhaust gasses and as a result gives you more thrust
- tropo 9y agoSomewhat yes. Iron oxide is included, but considered a catalyst. The rubbery plastic binder is a fuel. The Aluminum is a high-energy fuel. The "ammonium" part of ammonium perchlorate is a fuel, and the "perchlorate" part is an oxidizer. The amount of aluminum is limited to prevent the temperature from getting too high and because it makes low-energy exhaust particles. Good exhaust particles are low-mass gasses with few degrees of freedom in the molecular shape. Aluminum oxide forms solid particles consisting of many atoms stuck together, which is pretty useless.
- ilamont 9y agoThe soil around the launch site must be loaded with acidic exhaust particles and other residue, yet grass still grows right up to the edge of the platform. That's one tough variety!
- got2surf 9y agoProbably St. Augustine grass (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/St._Augustine_Grass https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/St._Augustine_Grass) given that it is Florida. St. Augustine is so tough, it even crowds out weeds! Not as soft as the Bermuda grass on golf courses, but very resilient.
- DoubleCribble 9y agoI'm pretty sure Bermuda grass can never be killed. No matter what you do to it, it always comes back. It's the athlete's foot of lawn pests.
- Taniwha 9y agoIn Berkeley ~25 years ago we had a severe frost, pipes popped, the eugenia hedge dies and so did the bermuda grass lawns too .. we pulled them and replaced them with traditional sod So ... yes it can be killed ....
- DoubleCribble 9y agoDid you dig the Bermuda grass out of the ground? Physically removing every blade, runner and root nodule it is the only way I know of to get rid of it.
- Hextinium 9y agoAll the Bermuda grass in our yard in Texas died after 3+ years of 90 days over 100 while the Saint Agustin keeps growing and growing.
- zaarn 9y agoI severely recommend using a mirror, that's how everyone does (and did) it. A well cleaned mirror won't look any worse than straight through the lense.
- platz 9y agoWon't the mirror collect dew?
- robotresearcher 9y agoAnd vibrate independently of the camera.
- bdamm 9y agoWhether vibration is from the camera or the mirror does not matter; both will reduce quality on the image, assuming a slow exposure. But these exposures look very fast. Even so, if the camera can be made stable, then so surely too can a mirror.
- wutbrodo 9y ago> Even so, if the camera can be made stable, then so surely too can a mirror. I don't think it makes sense to look at it as a binary of stable or not stable: the camera can be made stable to a certain degree, and the mirror introduces additional instability (even if just stochastically). I could understand wanting to minimize that.
- robotresearcher 9y ago> both will reduce quality on the image Yep. So why have two instead of one?
- bdamm 9y agoWhy blow hundreds or thousands of dollars on damaging and replacing lenses? Photography doesn't generally pay well enough to afford that for very long.
- matt_wulfeck 9y ago> Using a glass filter triples the area that dew can form prior to liftoff. I’ve had shots ruined by dew forming on the front element. I hate to see the waste still. Use a filter but also build yourself a little heated wrapper that keeps the camera and it’s lens above the dew point.
- mjhoy 9y agoI think the filter you would need for a fisheye like that would be specialized and somewhat expensive, though, due to the protruding front element. Someone in the comments said it would pretty much be the cost of the lens.
- patcheudor 9y agoYes, filters that big of any quality would cost more than the $133 fisheye lens he used and add one more thing that could go wrong. I'd gladly sacrifice a $1300 lens to capture a rocket launch that close. Mitigating lens damage is simply something no professional photographer is going to care about in that situation.
- js2 9y agoPlease click through to the photographer's web site. He's captured some really nice images. My three favorites: - "January 7th, 2018: SpaceX's Falcon 9 rocket launches the classified Zuma payload for Northrup Grumman, and lands the first stage of the Falcon 9 back at Cape Canaveral eight minutes after launch" - "June 11th, 2016: United Launch Alliance's massive Delta IV Heavy rocket launches a top-secret satellite, designated NROL-37, on behalf of the National Reconnaissance Office" - "November 19th, 2016: A United Launch Alliance Atlas V 541 rocket launches NASA and NOAA's GOES-R satellite" There doesn't seem to be a way to link directly to the images. They are hosted on a CDN with an auth hash which I think will expire, so search for the date here: http://johnkrausphotos.com http://johnkrausphotos.com He's 18 BTW. At first I misread that he'd been a photographer for 18 years. Bravo.
- Analemma_ 9y agoThat long-exposure photo of the Zuma launch is incredible! I've never had an intuitive sense of what the first- and second-stage trajectories look like, but that photo nails it.
- mikeash 9y agoI’ve been following his career on the SpaceX subreddit. He’d talk about getting out of school to photograph a launch, or occasionally being unable to do so. For a while he was unable to take close-up pictures because they decided not to accredit minors. He’s quite a guy!
- andrewwharton 9y agoThere's another photographer as well (Brady Kenniston) who got some magnificent shots of the Falcon Heavy launch. This is my favourite: https://www.flickr.com/photos/bradykenniston/26259934188/ https://www.flickr.com/photos/bradykenniston/26259934188/
- vvanders 9y agoIndeed, that's incredible work. Colors are well processed without being over saturated. The technical side is spot on while also maintaining fantastic composition.
- matthewmcg 9y agoHere's the OP's site: http://johnkrausphotos.com/ http://johnkrausphotos.com/ Even if he's hard on his gear, his images are great and he's only 18. Impressive work for a teenager.
- colmvp 9y agoEven as an adult, I wouldn't be able to get those images. I've always wondered how are photographers able to get such clarity for subjects that can be extremely blurry/murky/muddy, such as smoke and even water? Every time I take photos of clouds or water, it always looks dull.
- SahAssar 9y agoExtremely short shutter speed and perfect preset static focus I'm guessing.
- sangnoir 9y ago> Every time I take photos of clouds or water, it always looks dull. If your image is well-lit, in focus and doesn't have motion blur, you are probably just missing post-processing. Most pictures will look rather dull until they are touched-up to make them 'pop' - you can have a look at the before and after images from this Google AI research project[1] that processes landscape photos to make them more pleasing to the eye. Playing around with brightness, contrast, saturation and color curves can greatly improve a photo. 1. https://www.theverge.com/2017/7/14/15973712/google-ai-research-street-view-panorama-photo-editing https://www.theverge.com/2017/7/14/15973712/google-ai-resear...
- colmvp 9y agoUnfortunately, that's what I thought as it means I have to greatly improve my post-processing skills. Do you have tutorials that go into detail about how one can improve? I've spent the last decade using Lightroom but largely going by what feels right rather than being more technical and deliberate.
- deleted 9y ago[deleted]
- chasedehan 9y agoThose are some amazing images! Just looked at his personal website and I am thoroughly impressed.
- bdamm 9y agoThis is one talented young photographer.
- wymy 9y agoIf it pitted the glass lense, wouldn't the solid exhaust penetrate the plastic bag? I'm surprised there was no other damage.
- wutbrodo 9y agoI don't think that follows. Sand can pit a lens, right. And yet sand with the same force wouldn't penetrate a plastic bag.
- tritium 9y agoI think it's about force and hardness, contrasted against elastic and inelastic collisions. Either that, or maybe the caustic qualities have something to do with it? I'm not sure of the chemical aspects of the exhaust, but that part is also mentioned in conjunction with the debris accumulation.
- sgrytoyr 9y agoOne of his images is very similar to a really nice gif of the rockets firing that was featured on reddit the other day (by another photographer): https://www.reddit.com/r/woahdude/comments/81xnmv/i_could_stare_at_these_rocket_flames_for_hours/ https://www.reddit.com/r/woahdude/comments/81xnmv/i_could_st...
- hw 9y ago"the sound alone would kill anyone standing at the launchpad during liftoff." Didn't know you could die from sound. Curious as to how that works.
- saganus 9y agoI imagine the sound pressure would liquefy your organs. Just speculating here but a "sound wave" at those energies could be similar to a shock wave from an explosive.
- deleted 9y ago[deleted]
- mikeash 9y agoJust to give an idea of how loud this is: have you ever watched a video of a launch and heard a crackle in the rumble? It sounds like the sound is overdriving the microphone and clipping, but it’s not. It’s overdriving the air. Sound is variation in air pressure, with the peaks of the wave representing the maximum pressure and the troughs representing the minimum. But there’s a hard floor on how low the minimum can go. Once you hit zero pressure, that’s it. The waveform clips. That’s the crackle in a rocket launch.
- signa11 9y agospace-station transitioning the moon is also excellent !