More New Video!!!
I had a chance to swing by Cam's house tonight and pick up his camera's memory card. I didn't realize that Percy was taking video of the launch using this camera, but he did a pretty good job!
Here are some time lapse videos of the pictures from the first and second flights. Due to the spacing of the pictures, it's pretty hurky-jerky. What you can see is when the balloon pops, the image tumbles and the descent is fairly easy to see. Once on the ground, it takes a few seconds for the frost to melt off of the camera lenses.
Here are some video clips from our two flights taken with the low-res video cam. The following three are from the May 15th flight. A few notes: Notice the hasty "Three, Two, O..." countdown from the first video. We just let her rip. Also listen for Percy's expression, "whoa!" The balloon rose faster than we were expecting. The second video is starting to get into the jet stream and you can see how violently it affects the payload. Finally, the first video starts at about 400 feet above mean sea level and the last video is at around 50,000 feet. Due to the air being extremely thin at that altitude, you can hear a noticeable drop in volume of the audible "beep" produced by the camera, even though it is right next to the microphone.
Below are similar video clips from the second flight. The first clip starts at Elam Alexander School on Ridge Avenue in Macon (my backyard) and the last frame is directly above Cam's house. There was considerably more wind the second day and the second clip illustrates this pretty well. The final clip is from about 45,000 feet where things get a little more calm.