All of the excitement from yesterday’s launch made for a very tired day today. But it was a good tired. An accomplished tired. I showed some people one of the photos I took, and they were blown away. I will do a Facebook and Indiegogo post after the meeting with Rian later today.
After school I met with Rian at The Bay restaurant. It was good to see him again, as it had been a while and I was worried I wasn’t going to see him again. I showed him the photos and he was very impressed. I also showed him the prediction software and he said it was surprisingly accurate. I went on to tell him about how Michael will be very busy this week and the next, so I needed another place to launch and would the Airport be a possibility. He told me that their Hydrogen generator was broken, so they will not be able to fill my balloon, however if I bring my own gas it should be fine. Also, early morning launches should be fine, as their shifts start at four in the morning. He was impressed with the tracking system we had and said the use of the stations at the airport should be fine.
When talking about launch dates, he told me that the best days to launch would be just after a cold front had gone past, as the weather would be crisp and clear, there would be minimal wind, meaning less traveling distance. This Friday looks like a possibility, so we will aim to do it then. He told me that I would be more than welcome to come and visit their office at the airport and Thursday would probably be the best day for that.
Just before the end, we recapped the meeting in point form:
- Launching from airport: Yes
- Tracking from airport: Probably
- Launching early in the morning: Yes
- Balloon sponsored: TBA
- Hydrogen sponsored: No
- Meeting him at office: Thursday, must send a confirmation email on Monday
- Best day to launch: Post cold front
- Scheduled launch day: Friday
With that we ended a successful meeting and I will see him next Thursday.
When I got home I started editing the photos in Photoshop. Since the camera was looking through a hole, the edges of the box showed in the photos, making it look like looking through a scope. To fix this I just used the Fill Content Aware tool to draw around the black and then fill it with the content around it, so that it looked like it belonged in the photo. After this I exported the photos to Lightroom where I played around with exposure levels, white balance, noise removal and slight vignetting, making for some breathtaking photos.
