Eli5: how is nuclear test footage so stable? Wouldn’t it be shaken from the shock wave?
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The distance from test blasts is a massive factor. To add to that, the size of said explosion…is very large. So they built concrete bunkers for observation purposes. Those really helped.
https://www.nps.gov/whsa/learn/historyculture/trinity-site.htm#:~:text=The%20wooden%20observation%20shelters%20were,Gadget%2C%E2%80%9D%20was%20successfully%20detonated.
Like all pressure waves, nuclear shockwaves travel at the speed of sound in air, which is about 1125 feet / 343 meters per second.
The cameras for these tests are placed very far away. For the Trinity test during the Manhattan project, it was about 5 miles.
This means it would have taken about 20 seconds from the start of filming for the shock wave to reach the camera. At that point, the shockwave would have been relatively mild, and just shaken the camera a bit.
For much bigger bomb tests, the cameras are even further. Some of the clips for the Castle Bravo test, for example, are from 80 miles away. It would have taken 7 whole minutes for that shock wave to reach the camera.
Yes, and the cameras are shaken. The difference is that the shockwave travels much slower than the light, and since nukes are so powerful, the camera has to be very far away. This means it takes a while for the shockwave to arrive at the camera (many seconds or even minutes).
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