Identifier: airshipspastpres00hild (find matches)
Title: Airships past and present, together with chapters on the use of balloons in connection with meteorology, photography and the carrier pigeon
Year: 1908 (1900s)
Authors: Hildebrandt, A. (Alfred), b. 1870 Story, W. H. tr
Subjects: Aeronautics
Publisher: New York, D. Van Nostrand company
Contributing Library: The Library of Congress
Digitizing Sponsor: The Library of Congress

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Fig. 1S2.—The first photograph taken from a balloon in Austria. It representsthe Reichsbriicke in Vienna, and was taken by Viktor Silberer in 1885. their images on the same plate. One of these lenses is focussedon an aneroid barometer, and the other takes the view of thelandscape in the usual way. By means of a piece of clockworkexposures are made at certain intervals, and fresh films areautomatically rolled into position. The film therefore recordsthe reading of the barometer as well as the view of the landscape.Cailletet had a method of checking the readings of the barometerby comparing the known distances between two places, asmeasured on the ordnance map, with their apparent distanceas measured on the photograph. The focal length of the lensa. u 290 AIKSHIPS PAST AND PEE SENT. being known, it was possible in this way to calculate the heightof the balloon. He also devised an apparatus with nine lenses
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for taking panoramic views for naval purposes, , which wasbrought into use at Lagoubran. The exposures were made BALLOON PHOTOGKAPHY. 291 electrically, and the results were successful in showing thedetails of all the forts over a radius of 4 miles. However, it isdoubtful whether the result of further experiments on these lineshas been altogether encouraging, from the military point of view,Photographs which are taken more or less at random from captiveballoons carrying no passengers are liable to more than theaverage number of accidents, and these are already sufficientlynumerous, even in the case of manned balloons. The handlingof a camera in the confined space of a balloon is a very awkwardmatter, requiring much practice. The main difficulty lies inthe violent movements of the basket. It is true that photo-graphs can be taken of a bullet as it is fired at a target, andthis only requires an exposure of one hundred-thousandth of asecond. But during that time the camera must be held pe

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