!
ne Le A

minimum as compared with the correspcnding close-in bhangmeter measurements at the

Nevada Proving Ground.

For Snapper, stations at the following locations were manned initizlly: Ephrata,
_
Washington (1,160 km); Mountain Home, Idaho (692 km); Flagstaff, Airzona (447 km};

Pyote, Texas (1,420 kz), and Del Rio, Texas (1,640 km).«For the last two shots (No.7

:

and No.8) Pyote and Del Rio were abandoned because it became apparent that no detections
would be made at the two spots. The equipment at the two castern locations was added
to the Mountain Home station, and a new location added at Baker, Oregon (845 km) tuirmediate between the two northern locations. The time constants of the circuitry were set
to admit only the frequencies ~ 100 cycles to 30 ke in order to discriminate against natural light scintillation; this bandpass does not accurately reproduce the ght minimum
and, hence, in these experiments, good estimates of yield were not possible. Equipment
sensitive to both blue (~ 4,000 A ) and red ( ~ 8,000 A) was used. Experiments with a
polarizer for maximum discrimination from background were also performed. Detections
at Flagstaff and Mountain Home were generally successful. Baker was successful one
time out of two tries. No detections were made at Del Rio, Pyote, and Ephrata. The red
cells showed approximately two orders of magnitude less absorption than the blue cells,

although the signal-to-noise ratio was approximately the same for both color senvitivities.
Because we do not know the precise mechaniam of transmission, the light source is
treated as a directly viewed point source. The relationship then follows the farniliar:
Wr
kp
Wn
= ———-e~
D
4 p °
Where:

1
(4)

Wp = irradiance per spectrum band at distance D from the point source

W7 = total emitted radiant flux of the source in the band
k » absorption constant per unit distance
This relationship holds reasonably well for distances up to a few kilometers.

How-

ever, when the source is below the horizon, and not directly viewed, it ia obvious that it
ig not proper to expect the relationship to hold.
tions as though the relationship did apply.

We have treated the data of past opera-

As distance increases, with receptions made beyond line-of-sight and below the horizon, k decreases, which seems to indicate that the path for transmission of the light is
at higher aliitudes where absorption would be less.

Two empirical formulas for the relationship between time to minimum, t, and energy
yield in kilotons-equivalent, E, from reference 1 are:

*

E = 1.88 x 1077 (t + 7)?

(2)

E=0.10

(3)
é

OPERATIONS
Criteria for selection of a site for an experiment in long-range light detection includes
the following; (1) lack of clouds; (2) little movement in the foreground, (3) clear atmosner mews:

phere; (4) low wind velocities; and (5) freedom from man-made light flashes such as
airplane beacons, reflectiona from moving objects and automobile lights.

attteglately eaeaite

dees ee teas eecerene ee ne

Since experimental atomic detonations usually take place in the morning, the observing
10

ee ny

Select target paragraph3