weather/scientific balloons

Hi, I was wondering if anyone here could tell me what are the regulations regarding sending up a balloon to take pictures of earth from nearspace. From what I have found on the IAA website I think it is ok to launch one under 2 meters wide without a permit. Are restrictions in place on where you can launch them from?

Has anyone here ever done this? And what size of a balloon would you need to get to 15-20 thousand feet?

Hi and welcome,
I havent heard of anyone doing this before, how would you recover the camera afterwards, this thing could float out to the atlantic and what about planes?

Never heard of that but I did see an advert for a rocket with a built in camera that relays the image to a PC.
One use only though!

Never heard of that but I did see an advert for a rocket with a built in camera that relays the image to a PC.
One use only though!

Ash McFadden was talking about that a while ago. Not sure if its something he regularly does. Giving him a call in the Inishowen Maritime Museum might help with legalities.

The only balloons have been about 40cm in diameter and purely mischievous!

Cheers,
~Al

Valentia Observatory, Co. Kerry, sends radio sonde balloons up every 12 hours. These balloons are at MSL mean sea level with a diameter of about 2.5 metres. When they reach upper atmospheric levels of 50k feet they expand to about 4 metres. They are used for determining atmospheric data at 12 hours and midnight, 24/7.

You would probably need a balloon of at least 2 metres assuming a small payload like a camera to reach 20k feet. You would also have to consider avoiding jet streams where the wind velocities are high, ie. 100 - 160km/hr. This data can be obtained through T Phi grams from Met Eireann. Mainly used for pilots.

Met Eireann may know the regulations regarding sizes for sending balloons up.

Eamonn A

I was thinking if I launched it some where in the midlands it would reduce the chance of it going out to sea. Other projects that I have read about seem to travel < 100 miles from launch point. I would like to equip it with an onboard mini computer which has a gps, radio and camera attached.