If you looked to the northeast yesterday evening shortly before sunset you might have noticed a bright star about 10° above the horizon. That star was actually a balloon about 23 miles south of Anniston, AL at an altitude of 66,000 feet.
The balloon was registered to Raven Aerostar. They used to have a multi-year partnership with Project Loon, an Alphabet company that provided internet access to rural areas around the world (Alphabet is the parent company of Google). However that project was cancelled back in January, and even though this balloon was using a Project Loon callsign (HBAL538) what its mission was remains unknown.
I had been tracking the balloon all day in hopes of seeing it at sunset. Luckily around 7:00 PM it started moving southward and I started getting my photography gear ready.
Having previously spotted a National Weather Service balloon bursting back in 2006 (https://www.weather.gov/ffc/balloon53006) I knew I was looking for a dot of light that resembled a planet. Scanning the northeastern sky with binoculars I found the balloon in a gap between trees around 8:00 PM.
Now came the fun part – capturing the balloon with my 8″ Schmidt-Cassegrain telescope. The combination of my camera (a ZWO ASI174MM) and a 3x Barlow lens gave me an effective focal length in excess of 6000mm. I needed every bit of that focal length since my range to the balloon was nearly 70 miles. Once I found the balloon with the telescope I was able to follow it for for over 30 minutes. During that time it morphed into several shapes.
Most of the views were blurred by atmospheric turbulence, but there was one brief moment where I captured a clear view. This can be seen in the image below where the ribbing is visible. Despite several attempts with different exposures I was unable to see the instrument package hanging from the balloon.
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