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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Hi y’all,
Can’t the photos be linked to the GPS via the EXIF information? So each frame has its position and height etc in there? I’ve not done any real work with it but I’m sure I had a friend who did this so he could remember where he took the photos!
Would be cheaper and lighter than 2 cameras!
Top Top job though. I bet you felt “on top of the world” when you did this.
Photos can be linked to the EXIF info just by matching elapsed time of flight and elapsed time of image(s) after launch. Should be able to get close that way.
God bless you guys!
Very inspiring, and sounds like much fun! I must say I admire what you’ve done. Keep up the good work!
Thanks for Your brite idea to test the possibility of making / taking pictures above earth with pretty low budget !
Would be pretty interesting to have a visual serie of more pictures on the way up and down, but alltogether pictures seeing here are fantastic and brite, aswell.
Keep going with Your not-so-tiny-idea !
Best Wishes for both of You from frozen Finland in Europe, Felix
人才啊!! I admired you for your inspiration.
i read about this in discovery magazine’s latest issue. very cool. =)