Are you a Spaceman????? Amazing!!!!

No, he's just very tall.

[tcom]

PhotoME shows 25 degree Celsius (there is no "-" so I think it's "+25").

The sensor could be wrong or it wasn't so cold at all

That's strange. I did an extended walk last winter with the K10D in the mountains here. On the shots taken during the first 1 hour, the temperature recorded in the photos was constantly decreasing and ended finally around -16°C.

[RiceHigh]

No, he's just very tall.

104,000 ft tall? ;-) Anyway, I have just seen his explanation for the background story..

[falconeye]

PhotoME shows 25 degree Celsius (there is no "-" so I think it's "+25"). [...] The sensor could be wrong or it wasn't so cold at all

This looks like a happy coincidence.

The sensor will be cooler because it is cooler outside.
And it will be hotter because cooling is based on infrared radiation only, not air cooling which would be much more efficient (think of a thermos flask).

Between the extremes of burning and freezing, the camera settled at a comfortable 25°. What a luck!

[MrApollinax]

My ideas of turning this picture into a ad really focus on not putting extra things on the picture. Here is my idea:


Fade into picture:




Voice Over:

"For those who have seen the Earth from space, and for the hundreds and perhaps thousands more who will,
the experience most certainly changes your perspective.
The things that we share in our world are far more valuable than those which divide us."

{pause}

Capt. Don Williams (Ret.) Space Shuttles Discovery and Atlantis


Fade to Black

Fade In Pentax logo

Voice over:

"Pentax. Capturing the Images that bring us together."

Fade out.



Hopefully that makes sense... but I can totally see this in my head after watching the NASA HD special on the Discovery Channel a couple weeks back...

[PentaxPoke]

PhotoME shows 25 degree Celsius (there is no "-" so I think it's "+25").

The sensor could be wrong or it wasn't so cold at all

There is no way that camera was 77F. OAT was approximately -66F, and our measurements were consistent. Also, even after sitting on the ground for some time before we could get to it, carrying it to the vehicle, and opening the box, the k10d was still very cold to the touch, and was absolutely soaked with condensation because it was so cold. Remember also that the box is not sealed. There is a gap around the lens near the front foam. The foam is there to protect the camera from the high impact loads on landing.

I never said the camera temperature itself was -60F. Certainly the lens was, and the camera was exposed to that temperature through the gaps in the foam. Next time we fly, we'll put a thermocouple on it just for fun, for the nonbelievers.

[PentaxPZ]

I like the ad idea!
We want it on TV!!!!!!!

Great picture!

[Syb]

@ Pentaxpoke: Did Pentax Corp. give your K10d a free servicing? (''Not quite sure, I think it fell about 32 kilometers...'' ) They should! Or maybe replace it by a K20d for you as a pioneer... and bring this camera to a museum!

BtW, it looks like a world record to me... highest Pentax Quality Pictures Ever made...

Something for the Guiness Book!

Syb

[PentaxPoke]

We just talked about it, and now that the k10d has "earned astronaut wings" we are going to send it on the next flight where we test a new balloon that hopefully can get us near the practical altitude limit of balloons, which is approximately 120,000 ft.

That will have to wait a couple of months though...

[mzmn]

Please, please post an update when the next flight pushes through!
Did you have an instrument that measured the force of impact upon landing? Even if the camera was enclosed in foam, just curious what the measurement was.

[two68s]

Out of those hundreds of photos, there are maybe 5 or 6 that were overexposed when the camera was facing the sun.

Holy crap, lens flare!!!

[rfortson]

Fantastic work, Poke! Thanks for posting this. I hope Pentax USA picks up the ball and runs with this.

[rfortson]

Excellent shots, well done.

Did you have a look using PhotoME at the complete EXIF data? The K10D (and K20D) does store the temperature inside the DSLR into the EXIF data. I am wondering how cold it really go inside...

I wonder how other DSLRs would perform/survive in such conditions.

How does Photome know this? Why is there a temperature sensor inside your camera? Wouldn't there just be a switch that turns it off outside of a range?

[falconeye]

There is no way that camera was 77F

@PentaxPoke: Did you read my eralier post about sensor temperature? I ask because it could just have been lucky coincidence the camera worked at a rate of an image every 15s. Yu better know for the next time. Or stick with that intervall

[Gooshin]

i was under teh impession that space itself is arbitrarily temperature-less (2.7 kelvin or whatever)

and that whatever is out there will be as hot (or cold) as its ability to absorb radiation or other energy while exposed to it and lose it while not exposed.


so a piece of plastic out in space, out in the sun, is not going to be "frozen", only if you leave it in the shade will it start to lose its heat based on its ability to lose heat and based on any nearby heat sucking... matter.... in fact, from my readings i understand that if you leave something in space, in the shade, without any other matter around it, it would take quite a long time for it to cool down, since there is no where for that energy to go.

again i'm no physasist,

are you sure the condensation and freezing occured in space, not on its way down while passing all the other shit along the way?