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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Excellent! I’ve always wondered what feats of space exploration normal people could accomplish with a limited budget. This really blows the top off of my expectations. Please keep up the great work.
As a side-note, I have to wonder why are there so many pedantic jerks in the technology community? People: celebrate the wonder of life, don’t spend all of your time picking at the technicalities of other people’s accomplishments. (Translation: get out of your parents’ basement and let the government worry about enforcing obscure regulations.)
Steven – you may also be interested in looking up things like “mubarak helicopter” and “peasant submarine china” to find some other “made from nothing but junk” amazing feats.
Hey, if you took so many pictures… are you animating them to run together.. that would be cool… point out link if this is done already
[...] then used a Canon A470 loaded with the chdk open source firmware to take pictures. After seeing the results of their launch, the team hopes that this could rejuvenate interests in science and the [...]
how did the electrical parts and lenses not freeze that high up?
Amazing. Would love to see some hi-rez pics once you’re done being slashdotted.
Also curious, at what interval were pictures snapped?
The possibilities for future art/science projects using these techniques are mind boggling!
it’s nice!!!!!
Critics r important… pls dont take it personally. It just improves our society and quality…
So,
- Congrats! Neato! I got vertigo in front of my 12″ laptop!
- Where’d it land anyway, and did the card survive fine inside a shattered camera or what? Pics of the crash / extraction and survivability data please.
- So where’s the torrent of the pics? Please!!
Regards from Tokyo,
Matt
About pict 4, what exactly are we seeing?
What’s the boxed object below the balloon, pulling it downwards?
If that’s the camera housing unit, and the camera is inside, WHO took that picture? The camera can’t take a picture of itself.
The same goes for picture 3, can you give a better description of what we are looking at?
(No, I’m not trying to find means to prove this is a hoax, I believe in the project, but I’m confused with what exactly the pictures are showing)
I’m curious too, anybody figure out why it looks like the balloon is far below the camera?
That was from the chase plane.
Hey, you snapped a UFO shaped cloud in http://space.1337arts.com/wp-content/uploads/2009/09/thumb-300×225.jpg.
Congrats on your project!
@ Anu Brown de Deus Pic3 has me confused but Pic4 is clearly what is left of the balloon tied to the end of the string falling past the lense.
Very cool. Thanks for my new desktop pic. I call it Icarus.
It’s Cool!!
Very cool project
, could you please post a link for all the picture you took, must be around 3600 images 
[...] packets to keep the electronics operating at low temperatures. Head over to 1337arts for the flight pics & details. [via Slashdot] Read more | Permalink | Comments | Read more articles in Science | [...]
[...] packets to keep the electronics operating at low temperatures. Head over to 1337arts for the flight pics & details. [via [...]
[...] operating at low temperatures. Head over to 1337arts for the flight pics & details. [via [...]
Amazing and Inspiring! I totally want to try something like this.
So here’s a crazy question… could you then launch a small rocket into space once the balloon reached such a high distance or are you still too low to need a lot of power to break free of the earth’s gravity?
Imagine the photos you could get looking back at earth. You might need some other kind of radio transmitter too huh?
(yes… I watched too much Star Trek as a kid)
[...] students shoot pics from the edge of space using off-the-shelf stuff. And a budget of only $150. Cool! Comments [...]