High Altitude Balloon Photography
An interesting Slashdot article about high altitude balloon photography just sparked my interest.
The first article tells the story of a group of students launching a balloon to a height of 20 miles, for just under $150 USD, using only off-the-shelf components. Using a cheap pre-pay mobile phone with GPS, a cheap camera, some hand-warmers, batteries and other odds and ends, these guys actually managed to get some pretty good pictures.
A little Googling brings up another project, this time by some Canadian folk who managed to do the same thing with a bit more tech, and which resulted in some pretty spectacular pictures. Check it out.
So, what’s the chance of this sort of thing happening in the UK?
I guess we’ve got some problems with overcrowding (i.e is the payload going to end up on someones head, in the North Sea, or knocking off a chimney pot in Milton Keynes?) and there would have to be some careful planning, but has anyone done this in Blighty?
Time for the first Ubuntu powered space project?
Answers on a postcard (or in the comments thread probably!) please.
This entry was posted on Sunday, September 13th, 2009 at 8:49 pm and is filed under . You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.
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September 13th, 2009 at 9:37 pm
Check out UKHAS.
I’ve been following the project for a long time now.
September 13th, 2009 at 9:37 pm
It’s already happened! See “Bang Goes the Theory Ep 4″: http://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/b00m704v/Bang_Goes_the_Theory_Series_1_Episode_4/
September 13th, 2009 at 9:42 pm
Awesome, cheers man I’ll check it out!
September 13th, 2009 at 10:03 pm
Bang goes the theory feature was great although were they not slightly worried about the payload landing on someones head? Checked out the UKHAS site too. Trying to resist temptation to launch space balloon!
September 14th, 2009 at 10:34 am
http://www.pegasushabproject.org.uk/wiki/doku.php/missions:ballasthalo
This project, while it didn’t launch a camera, did launch a GPS and radio gear.
I know the London Hackspace followed this with great interest at the time. Maybe you could contact the guys who launched it, to ask them for access to the gear and code they built?
September 14th, 2009 at 2:17 pm
Thanks JonTheNiceGuy, great idea. I’ve got a couple of other people interested in the concept now so who knows, the north-east space program is maybe not so far off!