HD Video From the Edge of Space, On the Cheap

SoundDoc75 links to a page describing the motivations and problem-solving behind "a 10-minute HD video taken on August 24th with a Canon Vixia HF20 HD camera suspended from a 1500g hydrogen balloon and launched near Edmonton, Alberta. This is the first known amateur video taken from this height — 107,145 feet."

Comments

Kind of cool, but it made me dizzy

[swb]

Can they control or limit the camera spin? It makes sense they can't right after the balloon bursts, but I would think there might be some kind of tricks they could do in the atmosphere on ascent and descent.

Before the days of HD ...

[Skapare]

... and memory cards, ham radio operators did this one in 1989, which was just standard definition, but it went further (from Illinois to nearly Indianapolis) and higher. It just transmitted the signal back via the UHF transmitter on board.

now I know

[Luyseyal]

Now I have some idea of what it was like for Joe Kittinger, a guy who sky-dived over 102,000 ft. back in the Fifties.

-l

They could add a rudder...

[t0qer]

Watching the video I thought the same thing about controlling the spin. All it would take is a rudder mounted on a boom (no elevator).

Then again, why not add an elevator, wings, ailerons, etc? They could add a pico pilot

http://www.u-nav.com/picopilot.html

And have the camera always pointed towards home. Then when the balloon bursts, instead of an out of control fall, they could have a nice controlled glide back to earth.

By giving the wings a ton of dihedral, it would automagically keep the camera steady on descent.

Re:There's a reason this doesn't happen often

[Jeff DeMaagd]

Just a motor attached to a spinning disk would have halped a lot, two of these mounted perpendicular to each other should be enough to greatly dampen the spinning and oscillation.

Different Perspective

[gone.fishing]

For those of you complaining about the jerky video: STFU!

For those of you saying it isn't practical: So What!

I want to take my hat off to these dudes and give them a hearty round of applause and say "Great job guys!"

My point here is these guys had a vision, that led to an idea, that lead to an exparament where a couple of pretty normal folks did something extrodinary. It is the same kind of curiosity that Ben Franklin had when he flew the kite and "discovered" electricity.

Those of you who have offered criticisim, I ask you to reply to this post and tell me what you have done without backing that approximates or bests their very cool accomplishment.

Those of you who have a vision share it, maybe someone will help you make it an idea so, I invite you to share your vision.

For those of you who have an idea, share it and maybe someone will help you make it real.

We don't need government, business, or universities to make the world a better place; just a few ordinary folks who try to do extrodinary things!

Those of you who think this is just very cool, use this thread to virtually offer your applause and (real) encouraging comments!

Re:How misleading!

[kimvette]

It was mechanically coupled to the styrofoam enclosure, so there is a good deal of surface area to respond to sound waves. Most of the sound at that altitude seems from the enclosure anyhow - that would be picked up by the non-isolated mic even in a vacuum with that setup.