SEPTEMBER LAUNCH SCHEDULED!

The goal of this launch is to capture the sun rising over the horizon from altitude. Sunrise is 6:34. At 90,000 ft, the horizon is 367 miles away and a degree at our latitude is 60 miles. SO the balloon will see the horizon 6.1 degrees away. At 15 degrees per hour the sun should come up 24 minutes earlier at 90,000 ft than it does for us on the ground. [Confirmed with Starry Night Pro RWW] So we want to be at 90,000 feet at around 6:05 to 6:10 AM. If we climb at 1000 ft/min we'll need to launch between 4:35 and 4:40 AM. I think we'll climb at that rate if we put 3 pounds positive lift in the balloon.

I'll send several cameras (video and still), a weather station, and a Geiger counter. I have a fre BalloonSats to launch as a test for an article I want to write. -- KD4STH

David KD7VFB points out the times above are an hour off. We get to sleep in another hour! YAY!

Also, we need to remember there are a number of people who will need to be at the observatory Friday night for the montly astronomy talk.

Lee K6ZVA will be flying the ATV camera and a tracker to receive commands for the camera. I hope to find someone to capture the flight through the Herrett Telescope. More details as I know. For up to the minute information subscribe to the balloon mailing list. (Click on the mailing list link on the left, click the subscribe list for balloon and send the resulting email.) -- KD7VKZ

There may be another launch in October...

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