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What happens when you let go of a balloon? Why, it flies away, of course, as any child who's had their hearts broken from seeing their brightly-colored, gravity-defying friend of soft and squeaky rubber shrink into a barely-visible dot in the horizon after losing grip of the string for just one moment. What happens, then, when you let go of a balloon AFTER attaching a camera that's set to take a snapshot every minute? Some of the most gorgeous atmospheric pictures ever to grace anyone's eyeballs, that's what.
This is what four ordinary guys from South Alberta - Brian, Barry, Tony, and James - did with their white bulbous wonder of a heavy-duty balloon they fondly named SABLE-3 (South Albertan Balloon Launch Experiment # 3). With a payload of a Nikon Coolix P2 digital camera and a Byonics MicroTrak 300 APRS Tracker, SABLE-3 was let go to explore the big blue beyond, and hopefully capture on digital film what only astronauts get to see.
Was it a success? Was the third time the charm? You bet your last red balloon it is, with SABLE-3 netting more than 150 images of our planet from high up. The image we've used as a banner for this article is what the SABLE-3 team considers to be the best out of the bunch, taken at the dizzying height of 117,597 feet and we can't help but agree - that view is truly breathtaking.
You can see more of SABLE-3's photos at the balloon's official project website by clicking on the read link we've supplied below. There's also some photos of the team assembling SABLE-3 before sending it skyward, as well as one that shows just how big it is. We can only wonder, then, if there's going to be a SABLE-4, with a video camera this time? It'd certainly be a blast to see the world from a balloon's point of view.
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