1st Successful Amateur Hi-Def Video from The Edge of Space

The balloon and camera were launched at 7:44 AM, the balloon burst at 10:51 AM at 107,145 ft. and the camera landed via parachute at 11:40 AM, 89 miles from the launch site after a 3 hr. & 56 min. flight. The camera recorded a total of 4 hrs. & 22 min. of Hi-Def Video before it stopped recording 53 secs after landing, when its 32GB of memory was full. The only thing better would have been if the camera had recorded for several minutes more to captured the sound of us approaching and video of us opening its container.

If you get motion sickness or are annoyed at unedited video, either don’t watch this or skp to three or four minutes in.

At 5:20, they skip forward to 2 hrs 45 minutes. Where you can see the edge of space. What is that big white blob in the distance? Oh, and note that there IS SOUND at the edge of space. The physicists were wrong!!!

I love that fact that at one point all human sounds disappear. Except the sirens.

Details here.

Comments

#1 Bodach
September 24, 2009

COOL!

As someone from the Northwest, I need to mention that apparently there are corners of the US which are very flat indeed. Thanks for sharing this.
#2 travc
September 24, 2009

This sort of thing is very cool. But I do wonder why they always put the camera facing sideways (90′ from down)? It would be much cooler/useful IMO to be looking down.

Also, how hard would it be to make the enclosure somewhat aerodynamic so that it keeps orientation while falling (maybe also being a bit more stable on the flight up.)

Anyways, I’m sorely tempted to develop some cheap hardware for doing balloon based aerial photography (mapping). Simplest is just GPS, altimeter, compass and accel (and/or gyro) for orientation, and a camera. Hell, there are cel phones with most of that built in. Any ideas on how to maintain a controlled altitude?
#3 mikka
September 25, 2009

Awesome! Amateur science at its best!
I would say that is not actually “sound”, it’s more like the microphone picking up stuff: the wave of gas after the baloon burst in space and the ropes banging against the casing during the fall.
#4 Enoch
September 25, 2009

Isn’t “sound” by definition “stuff” a “microphone” “picks” “up”

happy NPD!!!
#5 mikka
September 25, 2009

No, “sound” by definition is “mechanical vibrations transmitted by an elastic medium”. Like the camera’s casing. But I imagined Greg was referring to vibrations in the air, of which there wouldn’t be much at that altitude.
And NPD was yesterday.