AYUCR Flight #8
RATS VII 4/18/98

This was a somewhat experimental flight. I had always been bothered by the graininess of the photos due to the 400 speed film. I had received email from several people claiming to have used 200 speed film with no problem. Someone had even had reasonable success changing the DX coding on 200 speed film to 400 in order to fool the camera into using higher shutter speeds. I thought I would try 200 film (without altering the DX coding) just to see what would happen. Unfortunately the results were not as good as I expected. The 200 speed film while improving some pictures allow too many to blur. I have now discovered Kodak Gold Max film. This is effectively 800 speed film that has "improved grain structure" which I hope will result in sharper, less grainy pictures on future flights

AYUCR Sitting on the pad	Liftoff. Oops...	Payload section recovered

I was able to further tune the timer circuit to start faster after liftoff. This is the first mirror flight where I was able to capture the motor burn. An I161 was used for this flight which means the camera is now taking its first picture within 2.2 seconds after liftoff. (350Nsec/161N = 2.2 seconds)

Notes:
Missing Photos (such as #4) Were either too blurry or too boring
1 - FIRE!.
14 - Shows the RATS parking area
19 - Pink dot in photo is actually the booster section's parachute.

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