The Big Sur Tracking-Film Bench: The Shot and the Tube

THE BIG SUR TRACKING-FILM BENCH · IN PLAIN SIGHT pp. 51 to 53 × JACOBS 1989 × GEORGE 1993, 2009
An Atlas filmed from a mountain through an image-orthicon telescope: the range nobody measured, and what a raster holds at every range
an object's image is its angle times the focal length, over the raster's pitch: a number of lines, at any range
the instrument's figures are the sources'; the places, the vehicle, the field and the film are tabulated; the lines are arithmetic
the arc, the Sun, the lines, the magnitudes and the circuit's g are exact; the burnout, the raster's height, the albedo, the seeing, the circuit are dials
no source measured the object's range or size; Jacobs and Mansmann and George are printed at equal size, the arithmetic beside each
watch the shot · read the tube · price the circle · open the file

Evidence

fact ⇄ what kind of claim · live

Jacobs (1989, the rejoinder): the 24-inch mirror, 240 in and the Barlows, 720 in as used, the kinescope and the 35 mm film, George's goal '300 to 800 nautical miles' as he quotes it, 'September 2nd, 3rd, or 15th', 'broad daylight', 'a relative polar orbit', four flashes, a dome; Mansmann (1987; 1983 as Jacobs quotes him): 'saucer-shaped. (Dome? Don't remember.)', 'classic disc', 'sizes undeterminable'; George (1993, 2009): 875 lines at 30 frames per second, 720 in, 'between two and three scan lines', 24 lines to one, 'Nothing "circled"', 22 September before dawn; Coulthart; Crain; the log

the sources' own words, with page, date and issue; nothing added

REPORTED

The pads 576A-1 and 576A-3; Anderson Peak and its elevation; Kwajalein; the Atlas D's 10.0 by 82.51 ft and its burn times; the Mark 4's 10 ft 8 in by 4 ft; the 3-inch orthicon's 1.6 in field; Johnson's criteria; 16 frames per foot

reference tables named on the File

TABULATED

The distances and bearings on a sphere; the Sun and the Moon through the shared sky module; the minimum-energy ellipse from the burnout state; the slant range, the elevation and the sunlit test at every second; θ = L/R, the image f θ, the lines over the pitch; the Rayleigh limit; the Lambert sphere's magnitude; 2πr/T and 4π²r/T²

arithmetic on the sources' figures and the tables; no constant fitted

EXACT

The burnout time, height and range; the powered climb's shape; the raster's height; the seeing; the albedo; the free range; the circuit's radius, period and flashes; the globe's texture and the markers

the sources give none of them; shown as dials and staging

MODELLED

What the film showed, and which of the two readings the lines and the skies fit

the question this bench leaves to you

READING

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