davegee1 Posted November 7, 2013 Author Share Posted November 7, 2013 here are some photos of the model hanging in the garage. Will do some photoshopping to make it look like it is in space. Found a few minor issues to fix. Quote Link to post Share on other sites
habu2 Posted November 8, 2013 Share Posted November 8, 2013 image links fixed... :)/> Quote Link to post Share on other sites
davegee1 Posted November 8, 2013 Author Share Posted November 8, 2013 thanks for fixing the links. Couldn't get all the pictures to come up. I'll be posting the photoshopped version of this photo and an earth and space background shortly. Should be pretty cool. cheers davegee Quote Link to post Share on other sites
davegee1 Posted November 8, 2013 Author Share Posted November 8, 2013 Here is a photoshopped version of the photo I took yesterday in the garage. Patrick did his magic and put it in orbit! davegee Quote Link to post Share on other sites
K2Pete Posted November 9, 2013 Share Posted November 9, 2013 The Photoshopped image looks pretty good Dave! He seems to have even retouched the reflections off of the camera lens! Nice! But let me ask ... back on your 1st page, you've indicated that the satellite was 23" diameter x 21" high. But the finished model looks taller than that ... I hope I'm missing something and that it's just an optical illusion. Thanx Pete Quote Link to post Share on other sites
davegee1 Posted November 9, 2013 Author Share Posted November 9, 2013 (edited) Here is a photoshopped version of the photo I took yesterday in the garage. Patrick did his magic and put it in orbit! davegee Hi K2Pete: The model is 23" in diameter and about 21" tall, at least down past the gold ring at the bottom. The gold bottom radial structure and ring adds another 2" onto it. From the one existing photo that I have of the real spacecraft, it measures on my paper 6" across the widest part of the satellite sides, and 6" from the top of the satellite to the bottom of the 4th stage (of the Blue Scout launch vehicle) attachment ring. Would have been nice having more design drawings, but none exist, unfortunately. Part of what you see in the photo could be a little bit of an optical illusion due to the slight upward photo angle making the satellite appear taller than it actually is; I just remeasured it now to confirm the above readings. Cheers davegee Edited November 9, 2013 by davegee1 Quote Link to post Share on other sites
davegee1 Posted November 9, 2013 Author Share Posted November 9, 2013 Hi K2Pete: The model is 23" in diameter and about 21" tall, at least down past the gold ring at the bottom. The gold bottom radial structure and ring adds another 2" onto it. From the one existing photo that I have of the real spacecraft, it measures on my paper 6" across the widest part of the satellite sides, and 6" from the top of the satellite to the bottom of the 4th stage (of the Blue Scout launch vehicle) attachment ring. Would have been nice having more design drawings, but none exist, unfortunately. Part of what you see in the photo could be a little bit of an optical illusion due to the slight upward photo angle making the satellite appear taller than it actually is; I just remeasured it now to confirm the above readings. Cheers davegee Hi K2Pete: I found this other shot I took while checking out the lighting and camera stuff for the photo shoot. This photo is taken at a higher angle. Not sure if you might see it being a little more "blocky" than "tall and narrow" that the other shots might look like. I wanted to accentuate all the detail on the bottom of the satellite on most of the other shots. cheers davegee Quote Link to post Share on other sites
K2Pete Posted November 9, 2013 Share Posted November 9, 2013 Before I posted my query I gave it some thought and looked at your pix and ... hesitated ... in case it wasn't my eyes. I'm glad that it was more to do with my eyes and the view that was posted, and not an error. whew ... Thanx Dave Pete Quote Link to post Share on other sites
davegee1 Posted November 9, 2013 Author Share Posted November 9, 2013 Before I posted my query I gave it some thought and looked at your pix and ... hesitated ... in case it wasn't my eyes. I'm glad that it was more to do with my eyes and the view that was posted, and not an error. whew ... :doh:/> Thanx Dave Pete I appreciate your comments, K2Pete. Photos sometimes can distort things, make them look different than when you get to see them up close with the naked eye. To me, I am often amazed at how much SMALLER things seem in real life than what my mind thinks they are when I fabricate them in model form, a fraction of the original size. With the exception of the Saturn V rocket, which still amazes me how big it actually is (check out the vertically standing replica in Huntsville, AL!), most other things to me seem different once I get to see them up close. I don't know why that is, just me, maybe. BTW, for those interested, today in history (November 9, 1967) was the first successful launch of the Saturn V rocket, called Apollo 4. With that achievement, we were off to the moon! davegee Quote Link to post Share on other sites
davegee1 Posted December 12, 2013 Author Share Posted December 12, 2013 (edited) Hi All: I haven't done much on the satellite lately, but now have added the siz solid rocket thrusters that were used to help spin up or keep spinning the satellite at a optimal 10-12 rpm for its picture taking of Earth. These were mounted in three pairs of two thrusters with each pair mounted on the opposite side of the bottom ring of the satellite. That way, they could try three different times to spin the satellite with the unused pair of thrusters. Col. Haig, the program manager, later came up with a brilliant idea of using the Earth's magnetic field to "torque" against the satellite and spin it precisely at the 10-12 rpm mentioned. After this technique was tested and perfected, subsequent DMSP satellites did not use the little spin thrusters and they were removed. Here you can see most of the ring from the bottom of the satellite. The paired thrusters face opposite directions for optimum spinning of the satellite Close up of one of the six thrusters ringing the bottom base plate of the satellite. davegee Edited December 12, 2013 by davegee1 Quote Link to post Share on other sites
ralf Posted December 12, 2013 Share Posted December 12, 2013 Nice work, is it done yet? I have to say that I really enjoyed your build. I hope you will post your future builds here too. Ralf Quote Link to post Share on other sites
davegee1 Posted December 13, 2013 Author Share Posted December 13, 2013 (edited) Nice work, is it done yet? I have to say that I really enjoyed your build. I hope you will post your future builds here too. Ralf Hi Ralf: I posted a reply, but it didn't end up where I thought it would. Perhaps it is somewhere else in the thread. I am looking for it. Well, in case I don't find it, I am pretty close to being done, a few more minor detail items to go, like clamps that secure the thrusters in place. I may have some other projects down the road, and if I do, I'll put them in a thread for new projects and how they come out from start to end. This satellite will be transported to Washington, DC next spring and will be installed for the new exhibit on Cold War spy technology next summer. I'll let everyone know what is happening should you be in the area and stop by the NASM to see this new interesting exhibit. cheers davegee Edited December 13, 2013 by davegee1 Quote Link to post Share on other sites
davegee1 Posted December 13, 2013 Author Share Posted December 13, 2013 (edited) Hi All: I just completed making the brackets that fasten down the six thrusters I talked about in the last update. These were made of carved balsa wood and and .030" black styrene plastic. I added little screws to make it look like the originals. here is a picture of one of the brackets that hold the six thrusters in place around the base. I tried uploading these pics but they wouldn't post for some reason. Perhaps the webmaster could help out? davegee Edited December 14, 2013 by davegee1 Quote Link to post Share on other sites
Hotdog Posted December 15, 2013 Share Posted December 15, 2013 Hi All: I just completed making the brackets that fasten down the six thrusters I talked about in the last update. These were made of carved balsa wood and and .030" black styrene plastic. I added little screws to make it look like the originals. here is a picture of one of the brackets that hold the six thrusters in place around the base. I tried uploading these pics but they wouldn't post for some reason. Perhaps the webmaster could help out? davegee Here ya go! Quote Link to post Share on other sites
davegee1 Posted December 18, 2013 Author Share Posted December 18, 2013 Here ya go! thanks for helping in getting the pics to come up. What was I doing wrong? Most of the time they come up fine, but sometimes they just stay in a label for the picture without bringing up the picture itself. Thanks for any suggestions on fixing this. Regards, davegee Quote Link to post Share on other sites
habu2 Posted December 18, 2013 Share Posted December 18, 2013 (edited) thanks for helping in getting the pics to come up. What was I doing wrong? Most of the time they come up fine, but sometimes they just stay in a label for the picture without bringing up the picture itself. Thanks for any suggestions on fixing this. Regards, davegee your image links start like this: http://i390.......'>http://http://i390....... the extra http:// is messing it up, it should look like this: http://i390....... hth, Edited December 18, 2013 by habu2 Quote Link to post Share on other sites
davegee1 Posted December 18, 2013 Author Share Posted December 18, 2013 (edited) your image links start like this: the extra http:// is messing it up, it should look like this: hth, Aha! I didn't even notice that that had come up somehow. I was using the same technique that I always use to post photos, but that extra http sneaked in somehow. I'll be more careful to check for that in the future. Thanks so much for solving this problem, Habu2! Cheers davegee Edited December 18, 2013 by davegee1 Quote Link to post Share on other sites
Astro-AL Posted January 21, 2014 Share Posted January 21, 2014 WOW that looks amazing. I can't even imagine how you did that. Looks almost like a picture from inside a real LM ascent stage. Upload more pictures of it if you can. OK, here goes! Hey, it worked! I had not tried using the "direct" entry before. Anyway, this is an interior shot of the 1/6 scale LM Challenger. This, being a two-year project and probably over 2500 hours into it, the details are too numerous to mention here. But just a few, scale lighting throughout the cabin, including the circuit breaker panels that were on each side of the astronauts. Alarm buttons on the control panel that light up and sound, the abort stage button that turns on a floodlight inside the ascent engine bell to demonstrate how it worked, and two blue lunar surface sensor lights that came on when pressure was applied to one of the probes on the three pads that had them. I can upload more if anyone is interested. Thanks for the tip on uploading to this forum. I had used a similar thing before to upload from photobucket, but it was different than what this takes to upload the pics. davegee Quote Link to post Share on other sites
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