Colin Rich's Camera-Balloon Videotapes The World From 24 Miles Up (VIDEO)

It's nice to see that the global recession hasn't kept artists from low-budget innovation.

The Atlantic's Daily Dish turned us on to a cinematographer in Oxnard, CA, who built a homemade high-altitude weather balloon with two second-hand digital cameras he bought on Ebay (for only $45) that captured beautiful video images from 24 miles above the Earth's surface.

DIY-tinkerer Colin Rich built his device with styrofoam and duct-tape to prevent the cameras from freezing at temperatures below -50F.

The balloon eventually burst at around 125,000 feet, which triggered a parachute to deploy, allowing the device to float safely down to land in Santa Paula, 15 miles away from where it was launched.

WATCH:

Pacific Star II from Colin Rich on Vimeo.

Comments

[DismayedRepub]

01:06 PM on 06/22/2010

This is a pretty neat achievement but why are we not reading and commenting on John Glenn’s paper regarding retaining NASA’s Shuttle? There is more to science and technology than Apple and APPs.

Is this what the United States space program has come to?

[SuperBenFranklin]

08:50 AM on 06/21/2010

This is awesome.

[flossophy]

05:52 AM on 06/21/2010

How the heck did they find it?

[gifu]

07:25 AM on 06/21/2010

GPS, most likely.

[EmmaJ76]

05:17 AM on 06/21/2010

Absolutley amazing.

[fishnetdiver]

04:28 AM on 06/21/2010

911 what is your emergency?

Falcoooooon! Nooooooooooo!

[lightist]

04:16 AM on 06/21/2010

Could you now rig one that would do the same in the human body?

[AndyWright68]

02:42 AM on 06/21/2010

It went nearly straight up and straight down 24 miles without any upper level winds effecting it? How did they figure the altitudes so precisely? No pictures during it's descent? And how did they find it? If it took half an hour to fall it must have taken hours to climb. Did they stare at the sky for hours? Hoax maybe?

[AndyWright68]

02:44 AM on 06/21/2010

Or is it 'affecting it'? I can never get those straight.

[Bryan Boru]

04:33 AM on 06/21/2010

This science fad has been going on for months now - it started with a couple of science students in England a few months ago. This is the third time I've read a story like this.

They put a radio emitter on it so they can find it after it falls back down, like the way scientists tag animals in the wild so they can track them. And the winds don't carry it too far because it's up there for such a short time. It lifts off really quickly, climbs, climbs, climbs, then the balloon pops and it parachutes back down. Typically these things don't go further away, ground-wise, than they go up.

[Mikes Sumondong]

02:12 AM on 06/21/2010

This is amazing! A testament to even simple things can do extraordinary and "unusual" events!

[machivellianX]

01:50 AM on 06/21/2010

why must people always feel compelled to add the worst music in the history of music to their videos?

[Mikes Sumondong]

02:17 AM on 06/21/2010

You are not to focus on the music..you are to focus on what he did...tsk tsk tsk...sooo missing the point

[EmmaJ76]

05:17 AM on 06/21/2010

I watched it with the sound off - the pictures are what mattered most.

[preemptivelove]

01:15 AM on 06/21/2010

is there a better viewer than this? my wireless connection can't make this thing play. is it posted anywhere else? anyone know?

[ltyr2002]

01:02 AM on 06/21/2010

Great video! Hideous music!

[manoflamatzah]

12:03 AM on 06/21/2010

....wow. BRAVO!!!!

[Amaete Umanah]

10:02 PM on 06/20/2010

This is really awesome!

[Mikes Sumondong]

02:18 AM on 06/21/2010

AGREE to the highest level...How i wish I can create one just like that!

[pokemon]

09:56 PM on 06/20/2010

Now send up about 10,000 of those at one time.. how fun.

[Mikes Sumondong]

02:18 AM on 06/21/2010

Correct!it would be truly fun!

[Jim Shaffer]

09:52 PM on 06/20/2010

The way NASA's budget's been going we may have to depend on people like this to have a space program at all.
Extreme hack Colin! Pushing the envelope!
It's amazing what one clever individual can do with such a small budget.