Cheap fun

It was fun for me/us at least.
What we did was taped a $10 mini-dvr camera to half-dozen mylar balloons, attached 1,000 ft of fishing line to the balloons & let 'em go.
The entire videos are rather disorienting to watch as the camera gets rather buffeted around in the wind currents.
This is a video compilation of most of the shots that were taken, a few blurry ones got in, and then some totally unrelated to the whole project got in there but weren't discovered until after it was posted to youtube.
You'll see Stephen Hawkings eyeball in one shot, and then another shot of the Atlanta airport.

This was launched from central FL, in several locations.

www.youtube.com...

That's a great hobby!

I saw a video a while back about some kid that put a camera on some balloons and got it to go up high enough to actually enter outer space.

I'd like to do it, but how do you get the camera back?

Sure, it's all fun and games til someone calls UFO!
But seriously, ti is a pretty cool perspective.
I don't know how you would get the camera back. My guess is you wouldn't, so the images must be transmitted back somehow.. Maybe it links to a satellite or something?

Peace,
spec

Sounds like a great idea, except planes fly pretty much right over my head all the time... regardless of my location. I'll check it out.. I always wondered how people actually did that..

enjoy

The 1,000ft of fishing line is how you get it back.

You learn a lot about physics whenever you attempt this.
The second flight that I did, which was right after the one where you can see my car & the top of my head got away from me and most likely did make it near space. I faulted a weak tensile strength line for that.
The next attempt, and next camera, I tripled the strength of the line, but also had to double the amount of lifting power, and the line caught more horizontal wind the higher it lifted so there was more drifting. Once it drifts way out, you cannot pull it straight back to you, for when you do, it drops VERTICALLY, not horizontally back in your direction.

I've seen them on youtube where they've strapped them to rockets, rc helicopters & airplanes, arrows, mopeds, cars, balloons...