[Space] condensation on lenses

[Blake Barrett]

Bryan,
   The thought of using a hand warmer has arisen before, but all the ones we
have come across are either electric (and thus requires batteries) or are
chemical based that require oxygen to create their heat. After that we
stopped looking into it, but if you can think of a way to make that work
that'd be great.

Blake

On Wed, Jun 9, 2010 at 9:59 AM, Bryan Klofas <bklofas at gmail.com> wrote:

> Hey Everybody--
>
> I noticed in the pics from the last launch that significant condensation
> formed on the sideways-facing camera on the way down. This makes sense,
> as the camera is very cold up at altitude, and very quickly it's down in
> the relative warmth of ground temp. And while on the ground, you can see
> the lens clearing up.
>
> In past balloon launches, to keep the camera warm throughout the flight
> I've either used strip heaters (kapton-type), or the heat from the
> mini-ITX that was flown. However, both of these solutions require a lot
> of energy, and I don't really want to add more batteries to the payload.
>
> One idea might be to have a small window on the outside of the balloon,
> and use a pocket heater to heat the window. Or just put the pocket
> heater near the extended lens? I wonder how the camera would feel with a
> pocket heater on it?
>
> I think we would probably need to try this with a downward-facing
> camera, because maybe the heater will only keep condensation from
> forming on half of the window, and we could easily see that with the
> blurryness of the ground images (and any associated gradients).
>
> Any thoughts?
> --
> Bryan Klofas, KF6ZEO
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-- 
Blake
blake at blakebarrett.net
1 559 455 7855
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