I loved my AstroCam as a kid. I think dad and I tried six launches. When a photo finally came out it was the best day. Thank you for sharing, a great reminder of how far we’ve come. Also of how short attention span has eroded patience during many of today’s prescribed “STEM” activities.
I built and flew both Camroc and Astrocam. Did not get any pictures with Camroc. I got a lot of pictures with Astrocam, a good many of them blue sky.
I never got the full 110 cartridge full of pictures. As the article implies, any model rocket flight had a decent probability of either catastrophic failure, or being impossible to retrieve. Get 6 or 7 flights on a cartridge, the temptation to develop it was too much.
My father had a 1970s Estes catalog that I adored as a kid. It had the ultimate camera rocket that I wanted to fly: The Cineroc (https://airandspace.si.edu/collection-objects/rocket-flying-...)
In the late 90s I finally saw some model rocket-based videos, made flying camcorders or TV transmitters on high power model rockets.
Today drones have made DIY aerial photography much less difficult, but I definitely wanted to fly cameras in my youth.
I loved my AstroCam as a kid. I think dad and I tried six launches. When a photo finally came out it was the best day. Thank you for sharing, a great reminder of how far we’ve come. Also of how short attention span has eroded patience during many of today’s prescribed “STEM” activities.
I built and flew both Camroc and Astrocam. Did not get any pictures with Camroc. I got a lot of pictures with Astrocam, a good many of them blue sky.
I never got the full 110 cartridge full of pictures. As the article implies, any model rocket flight had a decent probability of either catastrophic failure, or being impossible to retrieve. Get 6 or 7 flights on a cartridge, the temptation to develop it was too much.
My Camroc produced exactly one usable photograph. It was hell to load it with a single disk of unexposed film.