question: How do cameras capture nuclear tests so vividly without succumbing to damage from the blast?
comment: The camera sits in a bunker and is aimed at a periscope type setup with mirrors to film the test. [Special high speed cameras]( URL_0 ) use a fast moving mirror to capture incredibly high frame rate footage of the blasts.
passages: Included is footage of nuclear tests starting with the May 1945 trial run to Trinity (the first atomic bomb), a 100-ton TNT blast used to scale and calibrate the Trinity device, and ending with the last U.S. atmospheric nuclear detonation (called Tightrope) of the Nike Hercules air defense missile in 1963. Also included are test series in the South Pacific, footage of the firing of the U.S. Army's atomic cannon at the Nevada Test Site in 1953, and color images of multi-megaton high altitude air bursts over Johnston Island just before the limited test ban treaty went into effect (banning all except underground detonations) in 1963.
   BULLET::::- The "Ivy Mike" shot of 1 November 1952, at Enewetak Atoll, was the first full test of a Teller-Ulam design "staged" hydrogen bomb, with a yield of 10 megatons. This was not a deployable weapon. With its full cryogenic equipment it weighed about 82 tons.
   The USAF also conducts experiments including volunteer flight surgeons evaluating eyewear that will effectively block the brilliant atomic flare. A group of obsolete as well as contemporary USAF aircraft were also assembled near the blast zone to determine the extent of blast damage on aircraft.
   Section::::Large explosive events.
  
  BULLET::::- A 100-ton detonation occurred on 3 August 1961
  
  BULLET::::- The Snowball 500-ton detonation (hemisphere form) on 17 July 1964 formed an 87-meter diameter crater
  
  BULLET::::- The Distant Plain series of explosive and detonable gas tests up to 100 tons from July 1966 to August 1967
  
  BULLET::::- The Prairie Flat 500-ton detonation (spherical form)
  
  These experiments were meant to simulate and study nuclear weapon detonation effects including airblast, ground shock, cratering and effects on military targets.
   In some experiments, provisions were made to make high speed film recordings of the experiment, such as these videos.
  
  Section::::Experimental capabilities.:Hodoscope.
  
  TREAT has a fast-neutron hodoscope that collimates and detects fast fission neutrons emitted by the experiment fuel sample.
   There have also been simulations of the effects of nuclear detonations using conventional explosives (such as the Minor Scale U.S. test in 1985). The explosives might be spiked with radioactive materials to simulate fallout dispersal.
  
  Section::::History.
   BULLET::::- 1979 – The United States begins to deploy Trident I C-4 missiles, its first SLBMs with intercontinental range, aboard its "Ohio"-class submarines.
  
  BULLET::::- 1979 – June 18 – General Secretary Brezhnev and President Carter sign the SALT II Agreement in Vienna agreeing to limit strategic nuclear weapons.
  
  BULLET::::- 1979 – September 22 – An American Vela Hotel satellite records a strange double-flash of light near the Prince Edward Islands in Antarctica known as the Vela Incident. The flash is widely believed to have been caused by a nuclear test, possibly carried out by South Africa or Israel.
   The film uses Computer-generated imagery to replicate the scenes of bombing runs and dogfights, given the limitation of having a tiny number of Zero fighters being in a flyable condition having survived till the present day.
  
  Section::::Reception.
   Section::::Detonation.
  
  The device was mounted in a "shot cab" on an artificial island built on a reef off Namu Island, in the Bikini Atoll. A sizable array of diagnostic instruments was trained on it, including high-speed cameras trained through an arc of mirror towers around the shot cab.
  
  The detonation took place at 06:45 on March 1, 1954, local time (18:45 on February 28 GMT).
   Beginning with Trinity, the very first nuclear test in 1945, there was an obvious need to document nuclear testing with still and moving pictures photography. The film was needed for the study and understanding of the behavior of nuclear weapons. In 1946, in support of Operation Crossroads, the first atomic bomb test in the Pacific, the joint task force conducting the test had pulled together a provisional photographic unit of still and motion picture photographers to document the test. Most of these photographers were part of a small detachment of the 1st Motion Picture Unit from Long Island, New York.
   High-speed cameras were placed in protected locations to capture effects of radiation and shock waves. Typical imagery from these cameras shows paint boiling off the buildings, which are then pushed violently away from ground zero by the shock wave before being drawn toward the detonation by the suction caused by the climbing mushroom cloud. Footage from these cameras has become iconic, used in various media and available in the public domain and on DVD.
   Section::::Production.:Post-production.
   The "Dog" explosion is most popularly known for an image taken of those viewing it than the actual explosion itself; the photograph depicts numerous VIPs wearing safety goggles sitting on Adirondack chairs while being illuminated by the flash of the detonation. This photograph takes up the bottom portion of the cover of the 1995 documentary "Trinity and Beyond" by Peter Kuran. The safety goggles worn by all those viewing the test in the picture have become somewhat of a museum collectors item, with a possibility that Norman F. Ramsey may have been present. Cynthia Miller claims that her father, Van Dine, is the first man on the left in the photo. The blast wave safely arrived at the location of the VIPs some 45 seconds after the initially silent flash of the detonation as observed from their position on Parry island.
   Since its closure, the STS has become the best-researched atomic testing site in the world, and the only one in the world open to the public.
  
  Section::::History.
   Section::::Surviving units.
  
  Of the twenty M65s produced, at least seven survive on display. Most no longer have their "prime movers".
  
  BULLET::::- U.S. Army Artillery Museum, Fort Sill, Oklahoma (This is the original "Atomic Annie" that fired the live nuclear shot. It was restored in 2010 and is now displayed with prime movers replacing those that were lost in an accident when the cannon was retrieved from Germany by the museum in 1964.)
  
  BULLET::::- United States Army Ordnance Museum, Aberdeen, Maryland (still has the two large prime movers attached)
   The Build Team investigated the possibility of surviving a bomb explosion by placing the device in a container and diving out of the way. They first set up a charge of C-4 at the bomb range and detonated it as a control test, with rupture discs placed at distances of up to . These discs were calibrated to burst at , the threshold of shock wave injuries; the disc at was the farthest one that burst.
   High-speed video cameras are used to augment other industrial technologies such as x-ray radiography. When used with the proper phosphor screen which converts x-rays into visible light, high-speed cameras can be used to capture high-speed x-ray videos of events inside mechanical devices and biological specimens. The imaging speed is mainly limited by the phosphor screen decay rate and intensity gain which has a direct relationship on the camera's exposure. Pulsed x-ray sources limit frame rate and should be properly synchronized with camera frame captures.
  
  Section::::Uses in warfare.
   The mechanism of the high explosive lens (diagram item #6) is not shown in the Swedish drawing, but a standard lens made of fast and slow high explosives, as in Fat Man, would be much longer than the shape depicted. For a single high explosive lens to generate a concave wave that envelops an entire hemisphere, it must either be very long or the part of the wave on a direct line from the detonator to the pit must be slowed dramatically.
   BULLET::::- The United States enhanced its ability to measure nuclear explosions from outer space as it activated the sensors of two new "Vela" satellites ("Vela 3" and "Vela 4") that had been launched at the end of April. The new satellites had instruments that could not only detect the x-rays and gamma rays emitted from the flash of a nuclear explosion, but could also measure the yield of radiation.
   BULLET::::- National Museum of Nuclear Science & History, Albuquerque, New Mexico (has two prime movers)
  
  BULLET::::- Freedom Park, Junction City, Kansas, overlooking Fort Riley
  
  BULLET::::- Rock Island Arsenal, Memorial Field, Rock Island, Illinois
  
  BULLET::::- Watervliet Arsenal Museum, Watervliet Arsenal, Watervliet, New York, where they were all manufactured
  
  BULLET::::- Yuma Proving Ground, Yuma, Arizona
   Misty Picture
  
  Misty Picture was a test conducted on May 14, 1987 by the United States Defense Nuclear Agency (now part of the Defense Threat Reduction Agency) involving the detonation of several thousand tons of conventional explosives to simulate the explosion of a small nuclear bomb.
  
  From the test report:
  
  MISTY PICTURE
   "Yohkoh" carried four instruments :
  
  BULLET::::- The Soft X-ray Telescope (SXT) was an X-ray telescope with glancing incidence X-ray mirror and a CCD sensor. There was also a co-aligned optical telescope using the same CCD, but after the failure of the entrance filter in November 1992 it became unusable.
   On February 13, 2010 "Mainichi" published "New color footage of Nagasaki A-bomb devastation shows need for greater research resources" plus a 01/05/2010 Photo Special [film circa September 11, 1945 found at the United States National Archives in Washington D.C. by Professor Burke-Gaffney].
   Section::::Production.:Filming.
   Section::::Nuclear weapon design.
  
  Section::::Nuclear weapon design.:Cross-section.
  
  The fully assembled device had a hexagonal cross section, 1.25 metres in diameter, and weighed 1400 kg. The device was mounted on a hexagonal metal tripod, and was transported to the shaft on rails which the army kept covered with sand. The device was detonated when Dastidar pushed the firing button at 8.05 a.m.; it was in a shaft 107 m under the army Pokhran test range in the Thar Desert (or Great Indian Desert), Rajasthan.
  
  Section::::Nuclear weapon design.:Controversy regarding the yield.
  