Matthew announcing the time to sync the two cameras

In late May 2022, the Tau Herculid meteor shower was expected to have a potential outburst under new moon conditions. The originating Comet 73P/Schwassmann-Wachmann lost a cloud of dust that the earth would plow through. So Matthew and Paul decided to re-fly their NSL-91 payload to see what there was to see without a moon lighting up everything.

Launch prep from the RunCam and the Caddx color camera

Light pollution around Apex, NC just after launch

Similar images in RTP from the two cameras.

As they hoped to image the night sky in general, a Styrofoam “wing” was added to the payload. It was about 1.2m wide, 1cm thick, and 15cm tall and attached to the box with a little duct tape. This dramatically slowed down the spinning and led to some fun images of the east coast at night.

The Caddx camera features a much higher resolution. That allowed the capture of a few stars and even the hint of the Milky Way rising off the NC coast.
And when looking down, was able to clearly image streetlights within hundreds of miles.

No meteors were seen. The predicted meteor storm never happened. Just after burst, the foam wing detached and that caused the payload to spin dramatically on the way down.

The chase team recorded the landing in some woods and worked to gain access the next day. That morning a slight rainstorm moved in and activated the PVA-string release on the bridle. This dropped the payload to the forest floor perfectly. The onboard Caddx recorded this. Easy recovery!

Image from the payload after release from the tree.

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