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by graderjs 1616 days ago
Here's a video of a real one

https://youtu.be/wTI1lICFTA0

3 comments

Youtube recommended the following video after watching the above. Pretty neat to see the paths of the charged particles.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZiscokCGOhs&ab_channel=Cloud...

That's insanely cool. I want one of these at home. I could watch it for hours. A spinthariscope too!
I want a Zero Blaster gun, that shoots fog rings! How does that work?! Doesn't mention what kind of power supply it uses. "Additional fluid is available if your a maniac and need to shoot the gun more than 25,000 times."

https://unitednuclear.com/index.php?main_page=product_info&c...

it just takes AAs or AAAs for the smoke evaporator, the ring function is simple enough-

cylindrical chamber at front of device is where the magic happens- rubber diaphragm at the back, small-ish hole at the front (hole is roughly half the radius of the chamber)

holding the handletrigger fills the chamber with smoke, so that you can see the ring at all..

pulling the trigger results in a flat piece of plastic lightly thunking against a rubber diaphragm (black plastic and green diaphram in the image), sending forward the ring

you can also find much larger air vortex cannon 'bazookas' that lack the smoke function but are large enough to send farts and disturb paperwork across the room

Image intensifiers are really awesome. Microchannel plate CRTs use the same technology and allowed capturing single high speed events on film before digital oscilloscopes.

They are difficult to beat with modern technology (CMOS sensor) because they are much lower power than equivalent digital system, and have no latency. Think night vision goggles using 9V alkaline battery..

Telescope cameras typically only use CMOS sensors, why aren't image intensifiers used there?
Image intensifier is better for real time video, but is noisy compared with still images taken with long exposure cooled CMOS sensors.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HZD32Sm3Xwo

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Di-rjUrWvnk

Looks like a good randomness source