View toward Frenchman Flat, Nevada Test Site

From Max Canyon Road off Lee Canyon, in the Spring Mountains southwest of Las Vegas. When I was a small child in the late 1950s we would watch the above-ground nuclear tests from near here. At the time it was a popular activity among Las Vegas residents! There were always a number of other parties also out to see the test. Of course, you can't watch the actual detonation without heavy-duty eye protection--my kid sister and I would have to hide our faces under a blanket--but you certainly can watch the fireball afterward. I still have a small child's memory of mushroom clouds out in the desert.

My mom would watch the detonation through welders' goggles my dad had borrowed from the AEC. (My dad typically was at the Test Site for the test.) She says that at the moment of detonation, the inside of those goggles would go completely white--and then immediately go dark again. But, when you took the goggles off it would still be as bright as day as the fireball rose off the desert floor.

Just a few photons released at that instant of detonation ... :)