Balloon altitude detection equipment at Elmas aerodrome
Date
1952
Object type
Material
Dimensions
height (print): 115mm
width (print): 158mm
width (print): 158mm
Subject
Content object
Description
Three members of the research team (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 balloon “carried a radio-transmitter – a so-called radio-wind instrument – by means of which its bearing in azimuth and zenith could be determined...there were thus two independent stations for determining the position of the balloon and these observations were reinforced, in conditions of good visibility, by measurements with theodolites”.
The original caption reads: “ ‘Radio-wind’ receiver (a) and balloon thoedolite (b), on the roof of the Meteorological Building at Elmas aerodrome”.
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 balloon “carried a radio-transmitter – a so-called radio-wind instrument – by means of which its bearing in azimuth and zenith could be determined...there were thus two independent stations for determining the position of the balloon and these observations were reinforced, in conditions of good visibility, by measurements with theodolites”.
The original caption reads: “ ‘Radio-wind’ receiver (a) and balloon thoedolite (b), on the roof of the Meteorological Building at Elmas aerodrome”.
Associated place