Teens capture images of space with £56 camera and balloon

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/newstopics/howaboutthat/5005022/Teens-capture-images-of-space-with-56-camera-and-balloon.html

by frisco • 17 years ago

149 42 17 years ago

telegraph.co.uk

jibiki• 17 years ago

Would this be legal in the US?

rms• 17 years ago

Looks like it is legal, against my intuition on the matter.

From http://vpizza.org/~jmeehan/balloon/:

Part 101 of the FAA Regulations covers balloons, kites and rockets. The first section of Part 101 spells out exactly which kinds of devices the rest of Part 101 applies to. Regarding "unmanned free balloons," Part 101 applies if the balloon:

  (i) Carries a payload package that weighs more than four pounds and has
  a weight/size ratio of more than three ounces per square inch on any 
  surface of the package, determined by dividing the total weight in ounces 
  of the payload package by the area in square inches of its smallest surface;

  (ii) Carries a payload package that weighs more than six pounds;

  (iii) Carries a payload, of two or more packages, that weighs more than
  12 pounds; or

  (iv) Uses a rope or other device for suspension of the payload that 
  requires an impact force of more than 50 pounds to separate the 
  suspended payload from the balloon.

DanielBMarkham2• 17 years ago

sure

people do this all of the time -- its a neat experiment for kids of any age

EDIT: It's even more fun with a lawn chair and a person in it http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Larry_Walters

rjurney3• 17 years ago

There is no limit to the karma you should receive for introducing me to my new hero, Lawn Chair Larry.

'He was immediately arrested by waiting members of the Long Beach Police Department; when asked by a reporter why he had done it, Walters replied, "A man can't just sit around."'

What a quote!

donaq• 17 years ago

He committed suicide at the age of 44 by shooting himself in the heart in Angeles National Forest in 1993.

This is a story with a sad ending. I wonder why he did it?

cousin_it3• 17 years ago

Illegal in Russia. We can't even buy aerial photography services - no online map of Russia has them. It's sad when your government denies you access to the skies.

Edinburger• 17 years ago

Google Earth provides satellite photography. What am I missing?

bprater• 17 years ago

Anybody know how they got the images back down to earth?

carlosrr• 17 years ago

Looks like gravity helped:

"At over 100,000ft the balloon lost its inflation and the equipment was returned to the earth.

"We travelled 10km to find the sensors and photographic card, which was still emitting its signal, even though it had been exposed to the most extreme conditions."

dkokelley3• 17 years ago

I'm surprised that it didn't travel farther than 10km. There must have been 0 wind that day.

d0mine• 17 years ago

Here's their Flickr photostream http://www.flickr.com/photos/meteotek08/

And the blog in Catalan (see photos) http://teslabs.com/meteotek08/

noonespecial• 17 years ago

This image showing the flight and altitude path was particularly well done.

http://www.flickr.com/photos/meteotek08/3337008176/in/set-72...

critic2• 17 years ago

Hate to be a party-pooper, but if you can send a balloon there, it's not outer space yet.

jws• 17 years ago

"of" != "from"

paulgb• 17 years ago

True, but I can take a picture of space from by back yard on a clear night.

critic2• 17 years ago

They took pictures of Earth, mostly. I'm assuming the writer may be foreign, and merely didn't use the correct preposition.

danielzarick• 17 years ago

That is true, but it still doesn't demerit what they did. I find this to be pretty amazing, especially since done by students just a year or two younger than me.

arnorhs• 17 years ago

The article mentions a twitter account with no link to it. Can anybody provide that?

10ren• 17 years ago

"At over 100,000ft the balloon lost its inflation" wonderful euphemism.

Oblig. Hack: Quite often I want to refer back to a particular phrase or word in a book, and I have a devil of a time finding it. At times I've methodically re-read 10 or 20 pages in failing to find it. I've wished I could just google the damn book.

I can. By using Google Books or Amazon's search facility. I mention this here, because I wanted to use an expression of Gladwell's in Outliers, about someone "customizing their environment", and then saying " "customize" -- using Lareau's wonderful term" on page 105. I'd misremembered it as "lovely euphemism".

danw• 17 years ago

I would love to see an instructable of this

ars4• 17 years ago

So the balloon descended because it popped.

If they put a pressure release valve on it (one designed to work by relative pressure differences, not absolute, and I think most are anyway), how high could you get?

I'm guessing to the point where the difference in mass between the helium inside the balloon and the air outside is not enough to loft the camera. But with a light camera that has to be just about outer space, no?

Edit: And despite the risk, I think they should use hydrogen. If I'm not mistaken, it's 1/4th the mass of helium. I don't know how much higher that will take them though, but it has to make some difference.

noodle2• 17 years ago

hydrogen would probably be tougher to get their hands on for your average schoolkids.

jrockway• 17 years ago

You can make hydrogen with a glass of water and a battery. It is not hard to get.

nradov2• 17 years ago

For balloon buoyancy it's not the atomic mass which matters, but rather the gas density. Hydrogen is about 50% less dense than helium. Obviously there are some safety issues, mostly with handling a pressurized storage tank on the ground.

ars4• 17 years ago

Ah yes, I forgot that hydrogen is actually H2 (molecule of two hydrogens), so two nucleons per gas particle, compared to 4 for helium.

(And it is atomic mass that matters, but you have to count the mass of each gas particle. In an ideal gas, gas density is the same for most any gas.)

I wonder if it will make much difference though, I think air pressure falls off exponentially, so a doubling of buoyancy won't go far.

debt• 17 years ago

I wonder if you could strap a large rocket to it and have it launch once the balloon pops. How feasible is that?

EDIT: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rockoon

Teens capture images of space with £56 camera and balloon

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