Weather Balloon Photography
Discussion
Update on my latest flight: on Sunday I flew the new Raspberry Pi camera into a nice blue sky. It was set to take a 5MP image every minute, plus some smaller images which it transmitted over the radio link.
The flight was tracked down to about 600 metres altitude but by the time I got to the landing spot it had gone! Someone saw it land and took it home! This confused me greatly until he called (my mobile number was on the outside of the payload) and explained.
A couple of sample pix below - lots more on Flickr - http://www.flickr.com/photos/daveake/sets/72157633... and a write-up on my blog http://www.daveakerman.com/?p=1154
snap314 by daveake, on Flickr
snap294_ifl by daveake, on Flickr
Dave
The flight was tracked down to about 600 metres altitude but by the time I got to the landing spot it had gone! Someone saw it land and took it home! This confused me greatly until he called (my mobile number was on the outside of the payload) and explained.
A couple of sample pix below - lots more on Flickr - http://www.flickr.com/photos/daveake/sets/72157633... and a write-up on my blog http://www.daveakerman.com/?p=1154
snap314 by daveake, on Flickr
snap294_ifl by daveake, on Flickr
Dave
LongQ said:
Great stuff once again Dave.
Your mod for the Pi voltage regulator is interesting too.
Yeah, if you're not using USB then you don't need the 5V rail (though the BCM chip does sense the line, and won't boot if there's no voltage there, so just strap it to the 3.3V rail). The LDO on the PI is rubbish (dropout voltage 1.2V) so I replaced with a much much better one (dropout of about 200mV). End result the battery voltage can drop to 3V and the Pi will still boot and run.Your mod for the Pi voltage regulator is interesting too.
Dave
Dave, you appear to be the forum expert in launching balloons space (I love that we have one of those) and I'm looking for some advice. The kit you've been launching seems pretty advanced, small computer boards etc, are there any simpler set-ups/kits to try a slightly smaller scale?
We've got a small bunch of kids at our school who've done Astronomy this year and have been asking such a project and how easy it might be to do. I'm not so familiar with what's out there but having done a little light reading I'm intrigued however I'm also aware with kids involved I'd like to keep it simple so I don't end up doing the whole lot.
Any advice?
We've got a small bunch of kids at our school who've done Astronomy this year and have been asking such a project and how easy it might be to do. I'm not so familiar with what's out there but having done a little light reading I'm intrigued however I'm also aware with kids involved I'd like to keep it simple so I don't end up doing the whole lot.
Any advice?
MiniMan64 said:
Dave, you appear to be the forum expert in launching balloons space (I love that we have one of those) and I'm looking for some advice. The kit you've been launching seems pretty advanced, small computer boards etc, are there any simpler set-ups/kits to try a slightly smaller scale?
We've got a small bunch of kids at our school who've done Astronomy this year and have been asking such a project and how easy it might be to do. I'm not so familiar with what's out there but having done a little light reading I'm intrigued however I'm also aware with kids involved I'd like to keep it simple so I don't end up doing the whole lot.
Any advice?
You should have a reply to your email now :-)We've got a small bunch of kids at our school who've done Astronomy this year and have been asking such a project and how easy it might be to do. I'm not so familiar with what's out there but having done a little light reading I'm intrigued however I'm also aware with kids involved I'd like to keep it simple so I don't end up doing the whole lot.
Any advice?
I've entered one of the photos in a Pi Camera competition - if anyone's on Facebook and wants to help me win, click https://www.facebook.com/element14page/app_1607314... :-)
Dave
Dave
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daveake said:
I stumbled upon this today. Congratulations. You beat Felix Baumgartner's skydiving record, literally by just a few metres, admittedly with a cuddly toy though
Well done, great photo/video!
Yeah, the "few metres" was deliberate, you know in case he wants to have another go 
The maths said the balloon would burst at 39.3km, which didn't give me much leeway above Felix's record. That said that make/model of balloon is known for frequently exceeding specification and it actually burst at 41km so I could have released Babbage a fair bit higher. Maybe another time!
Dave
The maths said the balloon would burst at 39.3km, which didn't give me much leeway above Felix's record. That said that make/model of balloon is known for frequently exceeding specification and it actually burst at 41km so I could have released Babbage a fair bit higher. Maybe another time!
Dave
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