Filming the blackness of outer space using a camera and a weather balloon

[zoiks]

Pretty neat to have the dad get the kids involved in things like this.
http://current.com/news/92714165_must-watch-balloon-makes-it-into-space.htm?xid=PTNiGoog

 

[slayer202]

saw this yesterday. very cool. wonder how much something like that costs, it would be super fun

 

[Sphexi]

Nice.

 

[bfdd]

seriously fucking TIGHT. so awesome when it's shaking around and you can see the curvature of the earth.

 

[BoomerD]

Pretty nicely done. I'm surprised that it was recovered such a short distance from the launch site. I'd have expected more drift.

 

[Ichinisan]

Pretty nicely done. I'm surprised that it was recovered such a short distance from the launch site. I'd have expected more drift.

Guess they got lucky with the wind and much of it was canceled by the rotation of the earth...?

 

[htwingnut]

Really awesome.

 

[The Boston Dangler]

not to take away from how cool this is but:

"this thing went to space"
no, it didn't. 100000 feet = 30.48km.

The Kármán line lies at an altitude of 100 km (approx. 62 miles) above the Earth's sea level, and is commonly used to define the boundary between the Earth's atmosphere and outer space.[2] This definition is accepted by the Fédération Aéronautique Internationale (FAI), which is an international standard setting and record-keeping body for aeronautics and astronautics.

 

[abaez]

not to take away from how cool this is but:

"this thing went to space"
no, it didn't. 100000 feet = 30.48km.

Seriously? It went as far as it could with the kind of equipment used. You can see the darkness of space and the curvature of the earth. Good enough.

 

[The Boston Dangler]

Seriously? It went as far as it could with the kind of equipment used. You can see the darkness of space and the curvature of the earth. Good enough.

nope, not good enough. space is space, not space is not space.

 

[coldmeat]

not to take away from how cool this is but:

"this thing went to space"
no, it didn't. 100000 feet = 30.48km.

u jelly?

 

[Printer Bandit]

nope, not good enough. space is space, not space is not space.

 

[Eli]

not to take away from how cool this is but:

"this thing went to space"
no, it didn't. 100000 feet = 30.48km.

It went into inner space?

 

[Hayabusa Rider]

What would kick ass is a gyro stabilized O-class rocket lifted by balloon to that height then launched. I bet it would go pretty high

 

[cthulhu]

That was cool.

 

[rockyct]

saw this yesterday. very cool. wonder how much something like that costs, it would be super fun

It's really not that expensive but it depends on how much stuff you put in there.

You basically need:
rent a helium tank
weather balloon
foam box
heating pads (the cheap ones that have two chemicals in a small plastic pouch)
cell phone that has internet
canon camera with modded firmware (the firmware can be set to take a picture every X seconds)
battery pack for the cell phone and camera

The cell phone is an iffy but cheap way to track the balloon is to have the phone send it's GPS coordinates every minute. It gets the cell signal until a certain altitude and then hopefully finds a signal when coming back down.

 

[Mike Gayner]

not to take away from how cool this is but:

"this thing went to space"
no, it didn't. 100000 feet = 30.48km.

 

[Mike Gayner]

Just watched it - wow what an astonishingly cool project. The result was damn near perfect. Too cool.

 

[waggy]

i just watched that with my kids. my 8 yr old thought it was great she wants to do it now though. heh

i think that was a great project. it was rather cool

 

[eits]

badass

next time, they need to do it with an extended battery pack included in the capsule.

 

[Schfifty Five]

badass

next time, they need to do it with an extended battery pack included in the capsule.

Balloon would pop before all the battery was used up probably.

 

[GodlessAstronomer]

I'm not saying this isn't cool, because it is, but I have a pretty major criticism:
Set the fucking exposure on the camera before you send it up. There's no point in using auto-exposure, except to completely fuck the picture up. Expose for full sunlight so half of the video isn't a garbled mess.

 

[DrPizza]

It's pretty cool. As said, not "outer space", but definitely high enough to be really cool. And, not an original idea at all - in fact, there was a thread on here last year about a group of students who did basically the same thing.

 

[xanis]

What would kick ass is a gyro stabilized O-class rocket lifted by balloon to that height then launched. I bet it would go pretty high

Don't you have to get approval from the FAA to launch rockets above a certain altitude? But yeah, that would be sweet.

 

[BlahBlahYouToo]

really? it lands 25 miles away from the launch site?
shens.