2484: H-alpha
| H-alpha |
 Title text: "All the companies whose blimps I shot fireworks at are mad, but MetLife is especially miffed because I dressed up as the Red Baron." |
Explanation
|
This explanation may be incomplete or incorrect: Created by a BOT. Please mention here why this explanation isn't complete. Do NOT delete this tag too soon. If you can address this issue, please edit the page! Thanks. |
Transcript
|
|
This transcript is incomplete. Please help editing it! Thanks. |
add a comment! ⋅ add a topic (use sparingly)! ⋅ 
refresh comments!Discussion
I think the first company that got really mad was Goodyear, because they're famous for using blimps.
- unsigned comment
- Additional detail
A H(ydrogen)-Alpha filter is a special lens used for viewing the Hydrogen-Alpha wavelength of light through telescopic or photographic devices. It works by filtering out all wavelengths of light except the red spectral line associated with hydrogen. This is commonly used to see shape and structure of objects that emit said light (namely, our own sun, and various nebulae as mentioned in the text).
Many earlier designs for airships (including the ill-fated Hindenburg) used (highly flammable) hydrogen gas for lift due to both its lower cost and higher availability. After the Hindenburg disaster designers switched exclusively to helium or heated air for lift. I The Hindenberg was supposed to be using Helium, but the USA was the prime producer at that time and for some reason refused to supply Germany at the time. This forced the use of Hydrogen, with the regrettable result. Choice of exterior paint, the gas 'bag' design being too permeable and lack of earthing were also factors. RIIW - Ponder it (talk) 20:27, 3 July 2021 (UTC)
- For some reason? Germany was ruled by nazis at the time. Danger Kitty (talk) 21:45, 3 October 2023 (UTC)
- At that point, though, there wasn't really that much reason for America to refuse them just for being Nazis (indeed, people like Henry Ford were quite the fans of that regime for an embarressingly long time). If it had been after 1939 (and especially after 1941) then it would have been definitely more than the general politics (or possibly forsightedness?) that it was in the lead up to 1937.
- To be exact, in fact, it was the Helium Act of 1925 that banned export (in order to supply the domestic naval vessels of the time, so pro-America rather than anti-Nazi, especially as the Nazi movement wasn't much more than a niche concept in one of various competing factions in that era). The designer had even hoped to get an exception (double-layer the lift-bladders, to use some helium and some hydrogen), but never got that. And then in 1938 there was bartered a deal (having sworn off hydrogen entirely, due to May '37s event) to allow export "only for peaceful purposes", which may have only stopped due to the annexing of Austria (and well before the general "Nazis bad!" message had become the on the ground leftpondian zeitgeist). 141.101.98.175 11:46, 4 October 2023 (UTC)
Metropolitan Life Insurance Company (AKA MetLife) is an insurance company that licensed the Peanuts characters, In particular, Snoopy in their advertising. They featured the Snoopy character in his alter-ego role of World War I Fighter Ace (which frequently fought with the Red Baron in the Charles Schulz comics) in both print and television ads between 1985 and 2016, and most notably pictured on some of their advertising blimps. 162.158.142.160 06:29, 3 July 2021 (UTC) Not the Red Baron
Many nebulae contain excited hydrogen atoms emitting the Hα wavelength, so a Hα filter is useful for removing other light such as light pollution, making nebulae stand out in photographs.
In most cases when a sun filter is mentioned, it's probably a white-light filter that only reduces the light intensity. A Hα filter is used to highlight the sun's chromosphere – the layer above the sun's apparent "surface", the photosphere.
I'm not sure whether the same filters are actually used for photographing both the sun and nebulae. 162.158.183.220 11:52, 3 July 2021 (UTC)
I think someone should edit the summary to detail two points: One, that blimps are not the same as zeppelins. The latter has a rigid body and tanks of gas, rather than the former's balloon body. And two, airships such as the Hindenburg were never designed to be flown using hydrogen; it would have continued to use helium on that one fateful flight if it had not been for a trade embargo on Germany for the gas from its largest supplier, the United States.
I don't believe blimps have really ever been flown with hydrogen, but someone who knows better should add it. 172.69.142.62 20:02, 4 July 2021 (UTC)
About the Warning: i don't think that a filter has the ability, to hurt anyone. Therefore it should be rephrased, that the remaining sunlight will still hurt you eyes. 172.68.110.116 13:10, 5 July 2021 (UTC)
The solar filter in 1828 is surely not a hydrogen-alpha filter. The picture of the sun in that strip doesn't show the deep red hydrogen-alpha color, and it doesn't make sense to set the white balance while using a narrow-band filter. 162.158.134.100 20:08, 10 July 2021 (UTC)
