my space mission
 

I recently sent a small canon sd1100 to 110,000 feet and took some fun pictures and movies using CHDK -- http://icbnn.wordpress.com/2009/01/02/launch/

You can see pictures that reveal the flight conditions from that page.

I have another mission coming up and I'd like to switch to a small HD camcorder (1920 x 1080) to record the flight.

I'm looking for a camcorder that will record an excellent picture in the kinds of lighting conditions you see in the pictures above.

I'll need to *continuously* record about 4 hours. FAT32 file systems have a max file size of 4GB so assuming the camera uses a FAT32 format on the SDHC card, it would need to be smart enough to chomp the file and start a new one without human interaction. I cannot use a camera with a built in hard drive as hard drives tend not to work in a vacuum and future flights will top out at more than 150,000 feet.

The battery is not an issue as I will take the the external power adapter and hook it into a lithium polymer power pack that will power the flight computer and some other systems. That is wiring I can figure out on my own; but lower power consumption is better!

I'd like to keep the weight of the camera down to half a pound or so at the most.

I've been looking all around but no luck yet.

Suggestions?

The outside temperature will drop as low as -70C. I will have environmental controls built in but the more tolerant the camera is of an extreme environment the better.

Thanks!

Neat. I'd probably just release and press the shutter button again during boring portions of the flight to start a new 4GB video, then combine them later using software, bringing some 16GB or 32GB cards along for more storage, changing them when needed (during boring moments, of course). ;-)