[Laser] light beacon on balloon

[Karel Kulhavý]

On Tue, Jul 20, 2004 at 11:03:18PM -0400, TWOSIG at aol.com wrote:
> This is a project that is not quite a laser project, at least not yet.  
>  
> There is a local group that sends up balloon packages for fun and education.  
> They have sent payloads for radio tracking, telemetry beacons, APRS tracking, 
> Amateur TV, and cut down control uplink.  
> 
> I spoke to one of the group about a light communication related package.  He 
> said that they had tried a strobe light that was unsuccessful in that it did 
> not improve the ability to see the balloon with the naked eye.  The group is 
> always looking for another experiment to send up so they have another reason to 
> have a launch event.  So he encouraged me to come up with a "package design", 
> and suggested that it start with a simple beacon to demonstrate light band 
> down link and perhaps optical tracking.  They have a microcontroler board that 
> could provide a data stream to it.  

Put there a colour digital camera that takes snapshotes and sends the data down
by a optical beam. You can then do your own photogrammetry and orthophotomaps
:)

CL<