This morning’s NWS Birmingham weather balloon burst about 7 miles east of West Point at an altitude of 110,436 feet. Thirty-three minutes later it was landing in the Big Lazar WMA northeast of Talbotton.
As I started doing last year I manually tracked and recorded this one with the following setup: a 26-year old Celestron Ultima 2000 8-inch SCT, an Explore Scientific 3x focal extender, and a Canon EOS 6D connect to an external monitor. A 9×50 finder scope is used for initial acquisition. All of this is mounted on a Manfrotto 612 video head and an Artcise tripod.
At a distance of 29 miles this was enough power to not only resolve the balloon but also the parachute, string, and some flashes from the radiosonde sensor boom.