BEAR's guts:
The camera:
The entire flight was about 4 hours but the posted video is just under 10 minutes long. It's really cool that amateurs could do this and for such a small amount of money!
Posted on 09/24/2009 7:27:13 AM PDT by Reaganesque
1st Successful Amateur Hi-Def Video from The Edge of Space.
Tomoya came to Canada from Japan to have us send his HD camera to the edge of space
and has another video on his web page.
The BEAR 3 & 4 balloon flights were featured on the Discovery Channel, Daily Planet TV show on Sept 18/09
which can be viewed online at the Discovery Channel Web Site
Help support future flights by making a Donation and receive a DVD in appreciation
with 2-1/2 hrs. of the best of the 4 hr. 22 min. HD Video.
The balloon and camera were launched at 7:44 AM, the balloon burst at 10:51 AM at 107,145 ft. and the camera landed via parachute at 11:40 AM, 89 miles from the launch site after a 3 hr. & 56 min. flight. The camera recorded a total of 4 hrs. & 22 min. of Hi-Def Video before it stopped recording 53 secs after landing, when its 32GB of memory was full. The only thing better would have been if the camera had recorded for several minutes more to captured the sound of us approaching and video of us opening its container.
The camera captures a nice view of a local TV Tower at 2:50 (min. & secs into the video), 3:16 and several other times. The haze is from high humidity and it's unfortunate that the sky wasn't as clear as it usually is and was for SABLE-3. At 5:45 the camera is nearing 107,145 ft. where there's basically no air to conduct sound so nothing is heard other then what vibrations are conducted through the supporting cords, Styrofoam box and camera body to the camera microphone, like the bursting of the balloon at 6:26. Some of the balloon remains can be seen falling past the lens at 6:27 and then the fun begins as the Styrofoam box with the camera inside is repeatedly struck by the antenna hanging below and the several pounds of latex remaining from the burst balloon as everything tumbles every which way back to earth at up to 7900 ft./min (90 mph) in the near vacuum until there's enough air for the parachute to start functioning. The beeping first heard at 9:13 is my car door alarm as I got out to watch the camera land and at 9:36 the camera catches those tracking it as we stand on the road and watch it pass by before landing a few seconds later.
BEAR-4 was a balloon flight for Tomoya Kamiko from Japan who emailed on May 23rd after seeing the SABLE-3 photos to say that he would like "to take a photograph of the space, too!" and ask if I would help him send a Hi-Def Video Camera aloft . Tomoya didn't know English, but was willing to learn and come to Canada to do this so how could I say no. He didn't even have a video camera, but bought a Hi-Def one the day I agreed to help him and made travel plans to come for a balloon flight in August soon after that...
Click here to read the rest of the story and view pictures.
BEAR's guts:
The camera:
The entire flight was about 4 hours but the posted video is just under 10 minutes long. It's really cool that amateurs could do this and for such a small amount of money!
That was absolutely AMAZING! Great video and great accomplishment!
Very cool.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.