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| #1: Cul-de-Sac | #2: West View | #3: Same direction as #2 |
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| #4: My House (and Neighbors) | #5: My House | #6: Parachute Deployment |
Our Rocket Videos (And Stills)
Greg Ordy
This page contains links to several rocket videos. The description of the rockets are contained on another page.
The original AVI files were compressed for transmission over the Internet. The current file format that we are using is WMV - Windows Media Viewer. If you do not have the viewer on your computer, I believe that you can download a free viewer from the Microsoft web site.
This video is our very first rocket video. The rocket was the Scrambler 2 with the first payload section. The engine was a D12-3. The launch took place in my backyard, on May 17, 2002. This is the first 13 seconds of the total flight. Beyond this point, the rocket rolled and tumbled all the way back to earth (even with a normal parachute recovery). Selected frames were quite interesting, as they showed my house, and other surrounding landmarks.
Most of the video consists of the camera looking at me with the rocket on the launch pad. As the rocket takes off, it begins to rotate. My house and several other houses are visible. The brightness of the video takes two distinct steps down. This is the automatic exposure of the camera changing.
The following six still pictures were taken from a video made on August 1, 2002. We used our EyeSoar rocket, and an E9-6 engine. The flight took place in my backyard, which is always a little risky, due to a perimeter of rocket-eating trees. Still, when we can get away with it, the video is very interesting, since it's of familiar surroundings (to me!). Please click on a picture for a larger view.
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| #1: Cul-de-Sac | #2: West View | #3: Same direction as #2 |
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| #4: My House (and Neighbors) | #5: My House | #6: Parachute Deployment |
These six pictures are shown in increasing time order, across the flight. As the rocket rose, it was spinning, and slowly started to arc over. Some of the frames taken at a lower altitude actually appear to be higher than they are because their are more horizontal, and have a greater sense of distance. If you compare the first three pictures to our first video, you should be able to see the cul-de-sac street in both.
My house is shown in #4 and #5. At this time, I was in the middle of staining my deck, and you can see that it is approximately half blonde (cleaned wood) and half barn red. We were also having a very serious summer water drought, and the grass was far more brown than green. Picture #4 also shows the visual distortion which occurs when the view in front of the camera is changing too quickly. It would be nice to have a faster shutter speed for all of these rocket videos, in order to reduce blurring.
In the last still, #6, the camera is pointing up, and catches the parachute deployment. The parachute, which is a 24 inch X-Form design, is still folded into a small yellow package, as it was in the rocket body tube.
Please check back soon!