My first HAB flight a success!

[nebulosity.]

G'day everyone.

Just recovered my high altitude balloon payload and am pretty stoked with some of the images it captured :thumbsup:

I'll give you more details soon after I've finished putting together a video of the flight.

Anyway here are a few quick pics, sorry I haven't edited them properly yet.

More soon.

Cheers
Jo :D

[pluto]

That is so awesome!! :D
Congratulations, and thanks for posting!!

[traveller]

:thumbsup::thumbsup::thumbsup:

[Ric]

Excellent work Jo. :thumbsup: :thumbsup: :thumbsup:

Looking forward to the video.

Cheers

[Saturn%5]

:eyepop: Great Stuff Jo.

[PeterEde]

Impressive

[Nico13]

Yep, pretty good stuff.
Looking forward to seeing more.

[alistairsam]

Very impressive Jo.
How do you go about obtaining permits for these flights?

Cheers
Alistair

[Octane]

You have got to be happy with that! Well done!

H

[Pinwheel]

Great photos however I think your wide angle lens is exaggerating the earths curvature. In some photos you can clearly see paddocks & buildings but the altitude is far to low for that amount of curve & black space above. Do you have any altitude data to compare with the photos?

Great effort & how did you get the camera back?

[nebulosity.]

Yes these photos were taken with a GoPro and medium Fov so do have a bit more curvature than actual, I have still images (haven't gone through them all yet) from a proper camera that properly show the curvature.

The maximum hight it got to, was 33,500m (111,000ft)

Thanks for your comments everyone, it was great fun to do. I'll give you all the details on the video.

Cheers
Jo

Edit, The sixth image correctly shows the genuine curvature at 50,000ft (that's as long as my still camera lasted, the GoPro recorded right to 111,000 and all the way back down)

[gaa_ian]

That's Awesome Jo ! I used to go Hanggliding around Cecil plains in the mid 1980's , but I certainly never got that high, thankfully :-)

[FlashDrive]

:eyepop: ... what can I say ....:thumbsup:....brilliant...

Col.....

[Larryp]

Impressive! :thumbsup:

[multiweb]

:eyepop: This is so cool. :thumbsup::thumbsup::thumbsup:

[julianh72]

Brilliant! Well done!

Were you carrying any sort of instrument package? (E.g. air pressure, temperature, etc), or just the cameras?

[DavidTrap]

Very impressive!

DT

[scagman]

Your pics look great, also looking forward to the video.

[GraemeT]

Absolutely fantastic outcome, Jo. Congratulations!

[lazjen]

Great stuff - look forward to the video as well.

[gregbradley]

Stunning shots. What was the altitude of the ballon when it took those shots?
Greg.

[h0ughy]

fantastic effort and result

[ZeroID]

Oh Wow !!

But is the planet inhabitable ? :P

( Brilliant stuff though, well done!! )

[deanm]

Major coolness!

Quite an achievement.

Dean

[Regulus]

Jo, these are wonderful! Congratulations on a successful, amazing venture.
I have thought of doing this too, but living on an island means a splash down and tall gumboots :-)
Looking forward to seeing the other result your preparing
Trev

[sheeny]

Very cool, Jo!

Looking forward to the video and details.

Al.

[tilbrook@rbe.ne]

Congrats Jo!:eyepop::thumbsup::thumbsup:

What are you going to when are 30:question:

Launching your own version of the Hubble space telescope perhaps.;)

Cheers,

Justin.

[hotspur]

This is an outstanding achievement!!! very well done,its great to see a project like this.:thumbsup:

Will be good to see video,and also read details on project,such as CASA permits/details,and if you had any other recording data,as David has asked.
But most of all curious on how you recover downed HAB,and how far you had to travel to get this one?

Also,what costs are involved in this project?,a bit curious,as I leave high quality trail cameras in the bush for up to three months,and there about $500 to $700 each,its a valuable piece of kit to leave on its own (one bloke I know had a tree fall on his,and nothing was reusable).I imagine this HAB project would be an 'up' version of those costs,and could land anywhere.

Finally,is that the bunya mts I can see lower left in #6?

[nebulosity.]

Thank you everyone for your comments :thumbsup:

I have finally finished the video, hope you like it.

http://youtu.be/ckna9kIH3LY

If there is anything you want to know that isn't in the video, I'll be happy to tell you.

Cheers
Jo

[big_dav_2001]

Great photos!!! I'd love to give something like this a go...

Not sure if it's an issue for anyone else, but when trying to access the video on my phone, I get a message saying "this video isn't available in your country" (I'm in Sydney)... Just thought I'd let you know...

Davin

[nebulosity.]

Sorry about that, not sure why you can't see it. I changed a few settings on YouTube so I hope you can now see it. If it still causes trouble, make sure your signed in and it should work.

Jo

[gts055]

Thats a terrific result, great to watch and you must have been elated to get that call from 57 km away. Mark

[tilbrook@rbe.ne]

Bravo Jo!!!:2thumbs:

Truly spectacular journey.:eyepop:

Thanks for sharing this.

Justin.

[graham.hobart]

A spectacular success!!
Thanks for sharing. The free fall made me feel quite dizzy!!
So cool!
Cheers
Graham

[hotspur]

Whoa,you were lucky to get it back! glad it worked out.

What and how does the tracking system work?

Those Bunya mts look so lush,and some high mountains are quite spectacular.
Hope you can get some 'red bull or 'go pro' funding for next launch.

One of the best 'home brew' projects we have seen on this forum.

[multiweb]

That video was awesome. :thumbsup: Couple of questions.

How do you know how high it went when it burst? Did you have other kind of instrumentation in the box besides the camera stuff?

Also how did you work out/estimate the diameter of the balloon up there. Did you manage to follow it with binos while it ascended? Or was it based on initial size at ground level and volume of gas used?

[LewisM]

Jo, nothing stops you eh! From making your own telescopes and mounts to HAB's. The sky is NO limit for you - you will go places mate!

Fantastic stuff. Now to get you into amateur rocketry :)

[cometcatcher]

Wow!

I've been wanting to do this for the last 30 years but never got one of those round tooits.

[nebulosity.]

Thanks Chris,

Yes very happy to get it back, the tracker was a Spot Gen 3 tracker that we had set to transmit its GPS location via satalite every 5 minutes to Spot in America and they put it on their website so we can track it. Pretty simple, it worked great during all our tests but failed on the flight, don't know why. I probably won't use it for any further flights, instead I'm studying up for my Ham radio licence so I can use an APRS setup next time.

The Bunya's are actually a bit further north, the mountains you see are the ones that go from Toowoomba to down passed the NSW border, not sure exactly what they call em.

Haha, yeah it would be nice to have some funding, I reckon it would be awesome to do a flight way Out Back over some desets or something.

Thanks Mark, Justin and Graham, I'm glad you liked it.

[nebulosity.]

The hight was calutated from the flight time (125.4 minutes) and the accent speed (4.5m/s) The accent speed can be calulated from the amount of free lift there is.
I didn't other instruments on board besides the cameras and tracker, my main aim was to capture images of black space.

The size of the balloon is based on the manufactures specs at that hight.

Glad you like the video, I know nothing about video editing so it's a bit of a new thing for me.

[nebulosity.]

Thanks Lewis, my cousin and I have been playing around with making rockets for a few years but haven't been hugely successful, the nozzles on the engines have been hard to get consistant results from.

[nebulosity.]

It's a pretty awesome exciting thing to do, hope you'll be able to do it sometime.

[CapturingTheNight]

Great work Jo! Thoroughly enjoyed the video and pics. You can get free lens profile corrections for go-pro images if the excessive curvature bothers you. My local astronomy club is in the planning phase for a HAB flight of our own. How did you go with the CASA regulations for the flight? It seems to be our biggest stumbling block at the moment. Did you use a gimble for the Spot? We have had advice that you need to gimble them in flight to maintain a signal and make sure it is up the right way on landing. We plan to track using a Spot and APRS signals (just in case). Glad you eventually found yours.

[nebulosity.]

CASA was ok, just got to tell them all the details like accent speed, flight path, launch time, flight time, etc. You pretty much just have to show that you have thought it all out properly. I followed an example CASA application by Robert Brand, you might be interested to have a look at that.

If you are going to use a Spot tracker, I would recommend the Gen 2 instead of the Gen 3. The Gen 3 has motion sensors and stops signalling when it stops moving which is not what you want. The Gen 2 does't have this.

No I didn't use a gimbal, one locked onto satellites it holds them pretty good. I did tests with tipping my Spot upside down etc and it still held the satellites and transmitted. I'm not sure if the trouble I had was due to the tracker being close to the other electronics.

Anyway if I ever use it again I am going to tie it onto the payload line a few metres above the payload. Have seen it done on another video and it worked great, and from what I have seen I think that would be the way to go.

APRS will be awesome if you can get it, what type of setup will you use? Make sure it has a GPS that will work over 60,000 ft.
Byonics sell a 10W APRS tracker specially made for HAB's, that come fully configured with your call sign and ready to run, I think I might look into getting one of those.

Cheers
Jo

[CapturingTheNight]

Thanks for the information Jo. We have been liaising with Robert Brand too so it should all be good. I'm guessing you were able to get it classified as a small/light balloon and not have to worry about a radar reflector (although I did notice the payload covered in foil) and remote cut down switches, etc.

We are in a little bit of a hiatus with the planning due to family commitments from the main organiser. He is also the one who has the radio license so I'm not sure exactly what setup it will be at this time. Is this the APRS tracker you were talking about: http://www.byonics.com/mt-rtg
Thanks also for the tip on the Gen 2 versus Gen 3 spot. I will have to see what one we have lined up...

[hotspur]

Good to read a few more details.Maybe sponsorship might not be forthcoming.
But maybe look at some sort of magazine feature of your projects (not sure which magazines-maybe a science mag or that posh out fitters magazine).

I have been doing some home brew photography projects,and push the boundaries,with various technical equipment,the results have been of such a high nature,that I was approached by a number of magazines for an article.The money was quite a welcome bonus!,also approached by the developers of equipment in the U.S as my different approach impressed them too.

So,with what you are doing,you have really excelled,and put quite a bit of kit up for this,and its finally paid off.I'd say you have an outstanding story here,that will really put some coin back into your pocket.:thumbsup:

[PCH]

Hi Jo,

well done indeed, - that was an incredible vid to watch.

I've been dying to watch it since it was posted a couple of days ago, but my internet was playing up so I only just got to see it.

How exciting for you, - I was was almost bursting with excitement the whole time.

The only fault I could find was when the music came on booming about a minute from the end. I was so engrossed in the 'watching' - I almost pooped myself ;)

Big congrats to you matey, well done :)

[ZeroID]

Awesome video ! A bit dizzying in places but stunning to see the blackness of space so near and the blue edge of the atmosphere. Congratulations on a successful launch and retrieval.

Re your possible rocketry aspirations. I got into it a few years ago but gave it away as quite expensive and somewhat dangerous and noisy for my location but I can provide you with a number of sites and information re building your own including sugar nitrate motors. I still have most of a 25 kg bag of KNO3 downstairs which is now used on the garden. You would be welcome to it but I suspect Customs might have something to say about shipping it across the ditch. :P
I was building PVC motors with cast rockite nozzles using lathe turned molds. Allowed me to get reproducible results and experiment with nozzle diameters and bell shapes. At least it looks like you have the space to play there.
Let me know if I can assist.

[DavidTrap]

Very impressive - keep this up and I'm sure you'll go places!

DT

[nebulosity.]

Thanks a lot Chris for you comments, very interesting and I have never thought of a magazine being interested, I'll look into it further.

I would love to push the boundaries as you say, I guess I need to find something to push first. Anything that is to do with photography, science, and astronomy has got me hooked.

Cheers
Jo

[nebulosity.]

Thanks Paul! Really glad you liked it. :thumbsup:

Cheers

[nebulosity.]

Thank you Brent! I sent you a PM about the rockets. Love to hear more.

Jo

[nebulosity.]

Cheers David :thumbsup: