More AstroCam Drag Races

[DarenSavage]

Dan and I attended SCORE's rocket launch on 9/17/22. We got five launches with video from the ground, Dan's AstroCam and my AlphaCam. I combined them into one video with slo-mo!

The wind was up, but we were able to aim our rockets so they would return as close to the launch pad as possible. My last launch returned a little too close to the launch pad. Enjoy!

 

[BABAR]

I thought only the Falcon rockets were supposed to land on the launch pad!

really nice compendium of the flights. Would love to see you post some stills from the raw footage where one rocket “sees” the other, certainly a unique view of rockets in mid flight.

i may have missed it with all the wild post deployment gyration, were there any shots where one rocket ”saw” the other rocket coming down on parachute?

here is a nice mod I found that gives a pretty straight upward boost. I am horrible at editing (essentially I don’t) so just scroll to the flights.

https://www.rocketryforum.com/threads/box-fin-modification-for-estes-astrocam.165893/#post-2174262

 

[DanSavage]

Thanks for putting together and posting the video, Daren.

I thought only the Falcon rockets were supposed to land on the launch pad!

really nice compendium of the flights. Would love to see you post some stills from the raw footage where one rocket “sees” the other, certainly a unique view of rockets in mid flight.

i may have missed it with all the wild post deployment gyration, were there any shots where one rocket ”saw” the other rocket coming down on parachute?

here is a nice mod I found that gives a pretty straight upward boost. I am horrible at editing (essentially I don’t) so just scroll to the flights.

https://www.rocketryforum.com/threads/box-fin-modification-for-estes-astrocam.165893/#post-2174262

Here's some screen shots I grabbed from the video.

To date we have not captured any video of the other rocket under parachute. On this day, we did. I captured a couple of frames of Daren's rocket and he captured several frames of mine.

First, here's some of the boost shots.

Daren captured mine right after lift-off. You can see the stylized Estes logo wrap on my body tube. I'd intended these to optically compress so the Estes logo would look normal when I captured it in flight from my camera. Unfortunately, the focal length of camera lens is a little too long and these only look blurry.





My rocket just crossed under his and through his exhaust trail.





On this particular flight, my rocket stayed in frame for almost a complete rotation of his.





Here's a couple of shots of his rocket deploying the recovery system. You can count that he had five pieces of wadding.





Here's a couple of shots of Daren's rocket under parachute. Even though he was above me and the camera normally points toward the ground, I was able to capture these frames because my chute fouled around the nose cone.

 

[DanSavage]

And, a few shots he captured of mine. On this flight my rocket opened the chute closer to the ground that his. Because his chute is smaller than mine, he was able to almost catch mine before the rockets landed.

 

[DanSavage]

https://www.rocketryforum.com/threads/box-fin-modification-for-estes-astrocam.165893/#post-2174262

Thanks for the link. Yes, your rocket is very stable on ascent. I like how it doesn't rotate in flight.

My AstroCam is usually pretty stable with no rotation. I usually will sight the fins along the body tube and tweak any that have the trailing edges that bend during landing.

I didn't do that on the 17th, which is probably why it's rotating a little in the video.

 

[DarenSavage]

I thought only the Falcon rockets were supposed to land on the launch pad!

really nice compendium of the flights. Would love to see you post some stills from the raw footage where one rocket “sees” the other, certainly a unique view of rockets in mid flight.

i may have missed it with all the wild post deployment gyration, were there any shots where one rocket ”saw” the other rocket coming down on parachute?

here is a nice mod I found that gives a pretty straight upward boost. I am horrible at editing (essentially I don’t) so just scroll to the flights.

Ha ha! Me too. I like how straight your mod flies. I forgot to redo my parachute to get rid of the spinning. Luckily, it's not so nauseating in slo-mo.

After looking at Dan's screen grabs, I re-watched the footage from my AlphaCam during our first drag race. As it turns, out, I got lots of footage of his rocket during the launch and recovery. Lots of video!

I didn't see it until I watched it in slo-mo. Dan's AstroCam was in and out of the frame 26 times (4 on the launch, 22 times on the recovery), and its shadow at least once. I managed to catch my own shadow and SpaceX landing!

 

[DarenSavage]

And, a few shots he captured of mine. On this flight my rocket opened the chute closer to the ground that his. Because his chute is smaller than mine, he was able to almost catch mine before the rockets landed.

You can see this in the slo-mo video I posted. Your chute starts off as a small white star, then it gets bigger and bigger until I'm close enough to catch your rocket's shadow just before landing.

On another note, I thought it was weird during the descent of drag race #4, my rocket seemed to accelerate after the chute charge. Your rocket seemed to do the same thing during drag race #5. Let's go to video...

 

[BABAR]

Okay, yup lots of shots looking down on the lower rocket and chute now that I look on slow mo.

 

[bjphoenix]

Daren captured mine right after lift-off. You can see the stylized Estes logo wrap on my body tube.

That first image is amazing.