A quick glance above and you’d think the photo was shot by NASA using a rocket, costing millions. Or maybe shot by an astronaut clutching a Nikon D3X orbiting earth from a space shuttle!
In fact, the snap above is from a Canon Powershot A560 in a polystyrene box attached to a balloon.
The Icarus Project involves one team member, Englishman Robert Harrison and each mission lasts just 3 hours. The camera reaches 22 miles above the earth and parachutes back down completely unharmed. The camera has been customised using the CHDK firmware to turn itself on every 5 minutes and take a few 7 megapixel photos and a VGA video. All the comms electronics and camera are contained in a small box duct taped together, tethered to the balloon.
Now I’m pretty sure there is a good video to be made here with a HDSLR.
The camera would have to be relatively small and light, so of the current HDSLRs the GH1 with a light prime lens (Canon 50mm F1.8 EF) focused on infinity would be perfect, although nice to have a wider lens. The recording length on the NTSC model goes to 2 hours and 5 minutes for Full HD mode, but well over 3 hours on a 32GB card for the 720p 60p mode when set to the reduced bit rate setting.
Some kind of system to keep the camera horizontal and aligned with the horizon would be ideal – something which rotates independently of the box itself to disconnect the rocking and tilting motion of the box and balloon tether from the camera itself. But that’s pretty simple mechanics. Maybe the small and light 14-45mm OIS lens would help keep any vibrations at bay on the way through the lower atmosphere.
It’s possible none of that would be needed because you’d just be cutting the best few seconds of footage and editing it together in a nice way afterwards – so the odd skewed shot on the way up wouldn’t matter too much.
Another option is to have the camera pointing down at Earth rather than straight at the horizon, and you’d probably get a nice timelapse from that!
When the balloon reaches 22 miles high it’s extended to 22 metres across!! This clearly isn’t your average birthday party balloon. Then the balloon bursts and a small parachute which has been dragged up under the box along the way deploys. This is to save your nice shiny GH1 from hitting the Earth at terminal velocity. The box also contains a GPS unit so Robert can retrieve it from a field not far from the launch site 3 hours later, hopefully not from too high a tree!!
In calm weather the capsule lands pretty much near the launch site and the rotation of the Earth doesn’t affect things due to inertia. So the actual launch mechanics are dead simple and the mission doesn’t require a control room full of laptop bearing rocket scientists. Robert did however loose one box due to a comms failure. So if you’re walking your dog near Cambridge one day and come across a silver duct taped box with a Canon A560 inside, give him a call.
In the UK the contraption has to be launched from an area with no air traffic and needs the permission of the Civil Aviation Authority.
I think with enough interest from the HDSLR video community, we can interest Robert and lend him a GH1.
This will go onto be the first GH1 in space, the first amateur video made in space.
The BBC have done a video about Robert’s project here
Amazing photos from each mission so far are on Robert’s Flickr profile
Interestingly, very early in the project the Icarus mission was documented by two videos on Vimeo. Find the comment on one of the videos quite amusing! See this page: [url]http://www.vimeo.com/1498781
Data is logged during the mission…
