As some of you may know, each year for the past several, I’ve been fortunate enough to be able to volunteer my time and expertise to a couple of classes at the University of Washington, one of which makes a trip down to the Black Rock Desert in Nevada each year to launch high power amateur rockets.
As usual, the trip happened this March, and as usual, I’m delayed in getting around to sorting the pictures and getting a blog post up about it.
It’s about 13 hours of driving each way, so I prefer to split it up into two days, but myself and the course instructor ended up leaving the day before the main group, and arrived to make camp a bit early, but first we met the local ranger at the entrance to the playa.
A short time later, we headed out onto the playa to find where we were going to make camp. Once found, it seemed that the instructor had foolishly packed his camping gear underneath nearly all of the rest of the equipment, so we spent some time helping to unload the truck.
After which, I worked on unloading the motorcycles from the trailer I pulled down with my Outback, and set up the antenna mast.
Once things were pretty well settled, a buddy and I hopped on the bikes and rode over to the eastern side of the Playa where there’s the Trego Hot Springs. Originally this spring was found during the construction of the railroad, and the ditch was dug to direct water away.
And, as usual, the stargazing that evening was phenomenal. The nearest tiny town being miles away, and the nearest real “City” being hundreds of miles away, the light pollution is essentially non-existant.
The next morning brought launch preparations, and the associated launches.
Including some work from a small hill near the side of the playa for an attempt at receiving telemetry signals during different portions of the flights.
The next day brought with it a Rockoon flight (Rocket launched from a Balloon), and several other rocket flights.
Followed by an evening of long exposure photos…
Including a handful of night launches (of rather small rockets with LEDs on them).
And to finish off the slideshow, here’s some random shots of the area, camp, and the group.
And finally, I even took a timelapse over the course of a day with a Raspberry Pi and Camera that I had attached to the top of my antenna mast.