Weather Balloon Photography
Discussion
daveake said:
No bears!
Rebuild cost around £200. Any launch costs £200 in helium/balloon/petrol anyway.
I have another payload ready anyway - cheaper and much lighter (100g vs 800g) to get 1st rather than 4th in the altitude records
Dave
That's the spirit. Why only a £200 loss, did you only send up one camera?Rebuild cost around £200. Any launch costs £200 in helium/balloon/petrol anyway.
I have another payload ready anyway - cheaper and much lighter (100g vs 800g) to get 1st rather than 4th in the altitude records
Dave
Any idea what the world amateur record is?
Yes, it should float. Payload weighed 800g but should displace over 3kg of water. It had a label on it with my mobile phone number, however how long that will last in salt water is an unknown. I didn't waterproof it. Yesterday I stuck an identical label to a piece of duct tape and put in a jar of salted water to replicate the conditions as close as I can , and the label hasn't come off yet. The ink does fade with abrasion though. I spoke to someone else who had a similar experience with a payload landing a few miles from where mine landed, and his was washed up and found 3 weeks later, so fingers crossed!
The payload also had a backup GPS/GSM tracker which you call then it texts back its position. I've tried that lots but nothing yet. By now I think the battery will be flat.
Last reported position was 500m up and 30mph sideways. Previous position was just over 1 mile from there and was sent 2 minutes prior, which also equates to 30mph. Vertical speed was about 10mph, so it hit the water at sideways at some rate. Maybe it broke up, though it was quite strong with plenty of tape round it.
I have photos of the launch, chase and the seaside near where it landed here
, and the label hasn't come off yet. The ink does fade with abrasion though. I spoke to someone else who had a similar experience with a payload landing a few miles from where mine landed, and his was washed up and found 3 weeks later, so fingers crossed!The payload also had a backup GPS/GSM tracker which you call then it texts back its position. I've tried that lots but nothing yet. By now I think the battery will be flat.
Last reported position was 500m up and 30mph sideways. Previous position was just over 1 mile from there and was sent 2 minutes prior, which also equates to 30mph. Vertical speed was about 10mph, so it hit the water at sideways at some rate. Maybe it broke up, though it was quite strong with plenty of tape round it.
I have photos of the launch, chase and the seaside near where it landed here
Oh, and if anyone wants to help me rebuild this thing .... I'm in the market for:
Dave
- An A-series Canon Powershot that takes AA batteries. Mine was an A480. If you want rid of one, let me know the model and how much you'd like for it. It has to be able to take photos and the screen has to work (so I can program it with an intervalometer script), but it doesn't matter what it looks like. Also doesn't matter if it won't zoom out.
- A small camcorder weighing no more than ~100g. Mine was a Kodak Zx1. No need for a zooom. Ideally it takes AA batteries.
Dave
There's a thing called CHDK which is an extensive hack of the standard firmware in many Canon compacts - Powershot and IXUS models. It gives things like extended shutter speed ranges, RAW files and tons of other things. You download it to an SD card, then "install" via the standard menu. The CHDK firmware then takes over until the next power cycle. You can also get it to autostart.
One of the things CHDK gives you is the ability to run scripts, so I put an intervalometer script on the SD card and get it to run that. Mine takes a photo every few seconds, but you can get it to take videos and do all sorts.
Dave
One of the things CHDK gives you is the ability to run scripts, so I put an intervalometer script on the SD card and get it to run that. Mine takes a photo every few seconds, but you can get it to take videos and do all sorts.
Dave
daveake said:
Oh, and if anyone wants to help me rebuild this thing .... I'm in the market for:
Dave
I have one of these Canon Digital Ixus I that might work for you? It doesn't use AA batteries, but it's small and might be hackable.- An A-series Canon Powershot that takes AA batteries. Mine was an A480. If you want rid of one, let me know the model and how much you'd like for it. It has to be able to take photos and the screen has to work (so I can program it with an intervalometer script), but it doesn't matter what it looks like. Also doesn't matter if it won't zoom out.
- A small camcorder weighing no more than ~100g. Mine was a Kodak Zx1. No need for a zooom. Ideally it takes AA batteries.
Dave
theboyfold said:
I have one of these Canon Digital Ixus I that might work for you? It doesn't use AA batteries, but it's small and might be hackable.
Not one of the hackable ones unfortunately.I did consider sending an IXUS up before, as I have one. I had to hack in a connection for external batteries, and even then I'd need a voltage regulator to make it work. Mrs Dave took a liking to the camera so that's now hers and I bought the A480 on ebay. The powershots are a lot easier to use because they take AAs, so I just pop in two Energizer Lithium AAs which are rated for -40C. That said, the power used by the camera stops it getting anywhere near that cold even though outside is -50 to -60.
Dave
Edited by daveake on Monday 19th September 10:49
daveake said:
Not one of the hackable ones unfortunately.
I did consider sending an IXUS up before, as I have one. I had to hack in a connection for external batteries, and even then I'd need a voltage regulator to make it work. Mrs Dave took a liking to the camera so that's now hers and I bought the A480 on ebay. The powershots are a lot easier to use because they take AAs, so I just pop in two Energizer Lithium AAs which are rated for -40C. That said, the power used by the camera stops it getting anywhere near that cold even though outside is -50 to -60.
Dave
I did have a look after my post and thought that might be the case I did consider sending an IXUS up before, as I have one. I had to hack in a connection for external batteries, and even then I'd need a voltage regulator to make it work. Mrs Dave took a liking to the camera so that's now hers and I bought the A480 on ebay. The powershots are a lot easier to use because they take AAs, so I just pop in two Energizer Lithium AAs which are rated for -40C. That said, the power used by the camera stops it getting anywhere near that cold even though outside is -50 to -60.
Dave
Edited by daveake on Monday 19th September 10:49
For those interested, I have photos here of my next weather balloon project.
I started this payload before the one I lost at the weekend, but decided not to fly it in case it landed in the sea
as it would have flown even further.
The aim this time is to get photos from as high as possible. The two highest UK flights didn't carry cameras, but this does carry a tiny "spy" camera that I've labelled "crap-o-cam" on account of the picture quality. The camera connects to the flight computer and will wake up, take a few shots and a short video, then go back to sleep. This process will repeat from about 35km upwards. I'm expecting it to get to 40-41km (UK record is at 40.5km) and if it does, and returns photos, those will be the highest taken by a UK amateur.
I'll let you know when the launch is. That depends on the weather of course and availability at a couple of launch sites.
Dave
I started this payload before the one I lost at the weekend, but decided not to fly it in case it landed in the sea
as it would have flown even further.The aim this time is to get photos from as high as possible. The two highest UK flights didn't carry cameras, but this does carry a tiny "spy" camera that I've labelled "crap-o-cam" on account of the picture quality. The camera connects to the flight computer and will wake up, take a few shots and a short video, then go back to sleep. This process will repeat from about 35km upwards. I'm expecting it to get to 40-41km (UK record is at 40.5km) and if it does, and returns photos, those will be the highest taken by a UK amateur.
I'll let you know when the launch is. That depends on the weather of course and availability at a couple of launch sites.
Dave
You could do with one of these 
http://www.hammacher.com/Product/Default.aspx?sku=...
Great stuff, shame the last one ended up in the sea but i'm already looking forward to your next launch.
http://www.hammacher.com/Product/Default.aspx?sku=...
Great stuff, shame the last one ended up in the sea but i'm already looking forward to your next launch.
Just to let you all know that my next launch should be this Sunday (16th) at about 9-10am. The aim this time is to get photos from as high as possible, and to do that I've reduced the weight of the payload from the 800g-1kg of my previous flights down to a mere 100g. Also I'll be using a larger balloon. It should get up to 40km or so (my previous flights managed 30km and 36.5km).
It's carrying a little key-ring "spy" camera, weighing about 10 grams. The picture quality isn't good, but I don't have much option without increasing the weight substantially. To keep the battery consumption down (so I can use smaller batteries), the camera will be switched on for about 1 minute every 6 minutes, starting at 30km on the way up and stopping after the balloon bursts. Each of those minutes it will take 5 photos and 20 seconds of video.
The payload is also carrying some instrumentation to measure temperatures and air pressure - useful information for future flights.
I've had a bit of fun with the payload, as you can see below. If you want to watch the flight, there will be a live map at http://spacenear.us/tracker/. I don't think there will be any other balloons on the map that day, but if so you need to look for the one called "BUZZ1".
The predicted flight takes Buzz from West Berks over Milton Keynes to Cambridge and slightly beyond. This time I'll be careful not to under fill, in case he ends up in the North Sea like my last flight!
Dave
P1030202 by daveake, on Flickr
It's carrying a little key-ring "spy" camera, weighing about 10 grams. The picture quality isn't good, but I don't have much option without increasing the weight substantially. To keep the battery consumption down (so I can use smaller batteries), the camera will be switched on for about 1 minute every 6 minutes, starting at 30km on the way up and stopping after the balloon bursts. Each of those minutes it will take 5 photos and 20 seconds of video.
The payload is also carrying some instrumentation to measure temperatures and air pressure - useful information for future flights.
I've had a bit of fun with the payload, as you can see below. If you want to watch the flight, there will be a live map at http://spacenear.us/tracker/. I don't think there will be any other balloons on the map that day, but if so you need to look for the one called "BUZZ1".
The predicted flight takes Buzz from West Berks over Milton Keynes to Cambridge and slightly beyond. This time I'll be careful not to under fill, in case he ends up in the North Sea like my last flight!
Dave
P1030202 by daveake, on Flickr
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