Credit: © The Royal Society
    Image number: RS.9833

    Balloon altitude detection equipment at Elmas aerodrome

    Date
    1952
    Object type
    Material
    Dimensions
    height (print): 116mm
    width (print): 159mm
    Subject
    Content object
    Description
    Research staff (including a woman scientist or technician with clipboard?) overseeing ground monitoring equipment for balloons used in cosmic ray detection on the roof of the Meteorological Building at Elmas Aerodrome, Cagliari, Sardinina, May-June 1952.

    The expedition’s objectives and results in sending recording equipment into the upper atmosphere to detect cosmic rays were outlined by the physicist Cecil Frank Powell FRS (1903-1969) in his descriptive report: “Memorandum on high altitude balloon flights in the Mediterranean” (Typescript, Bristol, 20 July 1952) from which this image is taken. His account states that: “The recovery of equipment in the Sardinian Expedition was made in the following way. The balloon carried a ‘radio-sonde’ transmitter by means of which its altitude could be determined from stations on the ground or at sea.”

    The original caption reads: “ ‘Radio-sonde’ aerial and receiver (c) at Elmas aerodrome".
    Associated place
    <The World>
       > Europe
          > Italy
             > Sardinia
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