The GPS cell phone we used to track the location of our vehicle lost reception soon after launch (at an elevation of ~2500 feet). Although we had expected to lose contact with the balloon, the altitude of “last-report” was much lower than expected.
After loss of electronic contact, we could continued to track the capsule visually for about half an hour until the glare of the sun prevented further viewing.
GPS information recorded in the flight logs reported a maximum altitude of 19,853 feet due to software limitations. With some simple approximations (linear extrapolation of velocity – a fair assumption justified after looking through flight trajectories of similar balloons), we estimated that our balloon achieved an altitude of about 93000 feet before returning to the earth. The balloon’s ascent took about 4 hours, and its descent took 40 minutes.
 Earth from 93000 feet. Long Island in the background.
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 Glowing from the sun
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 Our balloon popped at around 93000 feet, beginning its 40 minute descent
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 The falling balloon
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to all of you that where saying this is not really space of course it isn’t but that’s what it says in the title (Photographs from near-space).
anyway guys nice job I am looking into doing this myself too
150 bucks? You kind of HAVE to do it. When plans/schema comes out, I’m all over it.
I’m looking into doing this. I have a friend who also thought this was really cool when he saw it, so I don’t think we’ll be waiting for plans to come out. We’re both amateur radio operators, so we might put APRS or some kind of transmitter in the payload along with the camera.
I am also amateur radio operator.
Perhaps you could write an article for “BREAK-IN” (Offical journal of “NZART”) of any developments/results of any experiments you do.
WOW, brilliant
[...] del lanzamiento), tomó varias imágenes de la Tierra de espacio (aquí está disponible una galería) y fue recuperado utilizando un sistema GPS [...]
This is something every school science class should do! My students were excited to watch the videos of the news coverage and to see the pictures!
Genuis!
Ive seen better…
…hater
Berts kind of an ASS, isn’t he.
[...] here for more photos and further details of the [...]
good job
I will probably want to attempt this someday!
That is soooo cool guys. Love to try that here in New Zealand!
[...] 1337 Arts Photographs from Near Space Purple Medical Blog [...]
This is a great project! What i love the most about it is that it delivers a great message to everyone out there: “You can do anything! the sky is the limit!”. It’s great to plan something, not fearing to put it to practice and having such a smashing success! Truly inspirational!
Wow, fantastic!
would it be possible to attach a mini rocket to it so u could blast the camera into space from 93000 feet, that would be sick.
Great Work !
The same done in Poland in 2006.
http://moo.pl/~tygrys/balloon/index.html
An amazing achievement! Well done!! Beautiful shots of space and the curvature of the earth. However,my concern is for the safety of other airborne traffic: light aircraft, passenger planes, and birds…not to mention all the other space junk that is out there.
Génial ce procédé pour prendre quelques photos de la terre et l’espace. Il ne reste plus qu’à améliorer le système pour faire de plus belles photograhies de l’espace.
Francis.