High Altitude Balloon Photos

This should be an exciting one...


So over the last year I've been working on a project, called the "Wyvern in Space Project" to launch a High Altitude Balloon carrying my school mascot into near-space, and a little under two weeks ago we had a successful launch and recovery!

The purpose of this was to promote school spirit, as who doesn't want to see their mascot in space, to gather some really interesting temperature/pressure/speed data, and to, of course, take some pictures of the earth from an incredibly compelling angle (we ended up reaching almost 16 miles!!).

Though not technically astrophotography, I'm extremely proud of how these pictures came out, and I think they are very interesting to see.

The camera used are the GoPro Hero 2 (forward facing camera with mascot) and the GoPro Hero 4 (downward facing) they were gathering video footage from which I have selected some of my favorite frames. The entire 2 hour flight was filmed by both camera and is currently being editing into a 10~ minute video by and far more experienced video editor, my friend Tim (https://www.youtube.com/user/TheBuckProductions) I will likely link to the whole video on this blog as well.

P.S. The mascot is a Wyvern, a dragon like being which has back legs and wings, that spits acid.

Hope you enjoy!

 This picture was captured right after the burst of the balloon, it captures the parachute, radar reflector, the burst balloon, the earth, and the extra "sparkles" on the wyvern is frost (it reached below -50 degrees Celsius!)

 This picture speaks for itself, it really gives you a scale of just how far up 16 miles really is. I love the way the atmosphere appears to glow in this shot.

This picture was caught by pure chance. When the balloon burst the payload jerked up and the downward facing camera, caught what might be my favorite moment. The balloon in tatters, but the little smudge in the bottom left corner of the picture is the recently released gaseous Helium.  

Thank you to everyone that helped make this project possible, I hope you enjoy the picture, and I will post the link to the video on this page as soon as it comes out (even if its not technically astrophotography) 

- Connor

While learning how to use the camera's for the upcoming High Altitude balloon project I came across a very neat feature of the GoPro hero 4 called "night lapse". If you set it up right it takes a series of photos overnight that can be edited into a neat time-lapse video of the stars moving over head.  For a first attempt I am quite happy with this video but in the future I think it would be really cool to capture sunrise or sunset in the shot or the perseid meteor shower later this month.

I attempted to post the video itself here but blogger compresses the video to around 3 pixels, so here is the youtube link- I recomned veiwing it in 1080p 

https://youtu.be/TfJYlQMQz7E

I hope you enjoy, 

Connor

Honeymoon

Funny story for this one, on the night of the strawberry/honey moon I was excited for the chance to take pictures of it, after all this was a once in a lifetime phenomenon (a full moon this month coinciding with the summer solstice) and I had just gotten an iPhone adapter in the mail that I was eager to try. However with local cloud coverage being what it was there was a chance I might not even get to see it, let alone take pictures. So, figuring we could get a better view  from a different part of the state my father and I drove out to Fisher Meadows in Avon- a large area of soccer fields and ponds-where I hoped to find clearer view of the skies. We set up the mount and the camera in the middle of the soccer field, took a few videos and waited patiently for a break in the clouds, to no avail.  When, without warning, we were ambushed by a rouge sprinkler system which must have been turned on by a timer. My father dove in front of the lens and I, as quickly as I could, grabbed the box of eyepieces and ran to the safety of the parking lot. None of the equipment was broken (and I probably needed to clean the lens anyways) but we decided to call it a night and go home, damp and defeated. However, the moment we pulled into the driveway we looked up and, with utter disbelief, noticed a break in the clouds. We quickly set up the equipment and took a few videos, which became the picture below. 

Overall, it was a good time, and I think the pictures came out decent, though I still have a lot to learn in terms of post processing

Images taken on June 20th with the Celestron Nexstar Evolution 8" Schmidt-Cassegrain, from West Hartford CT. The camera I used was the standard iPhone 5s video function with Gosky adapter. The post processing software used was Pipp, Autostakkert!2 and RegiStax 6.1

Up in northern Vermont for the weekend with my family, I wanted to take advantage of the darker sky's and take some pictures of Saturn. I'm relatively new to photo capturing process, and this my first attempt at using Autostakkert!2. I am always looking for suggestions and ways to improve. However I hope you enjoy my first attempt.  

Images taken on June 16th with the Celestron Nexstar Evolution 8" Schmidt-Cassegrain, from South Hero Vermont. The camera I used was the Skyris 445C and acquired using the iCap 2.3 software. The post processing software used was Autostakkert!2 and RegiStax 6.1