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Flying by night

Posted by Richard Evans on July 18, 2013 at 6:30pm

I don't get to spend enough time with my little flying friend when I only fly by day.. So I decided that since I work during the day, that I needed to equip my little flying friend to play at night. 

A low light camera and some lights to help me with location and orientation, and the mission planner and my video ground station all working together are extending my play time well into the night.  

In this video, it is so dark that you could walk into a tree. but once you get above them, you can see the the lights of the houses, coming from the windows, as there are no street lights here. I was quite amazed at the low light camera seems to do as good or better than my night vision binoculars. and the FOV is much better!

Anyway, I am looking forward to finding some nice night flight adventures in the future. 

Tags: flying, night
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Comments

  • Richard Evans July 22, 2013 at 8:39pm

    Hi Muhammad,  

    It is a 3DR Arducopter, but has DJI motors and propellers.  It has a 3DR telemetry radio set, and a low light camera also from 3DR. I am using 5000 MAH lipo packs and a minimOSD, and a 5.8 GHZ immersion video Xmitter and Fatshark goggles for FPV flight,for night flight, I use the Mission Planner and LOS. I have a GoPro and brushless gimbal I haven't installed yet.  

  • Richard Evans July 22, 2013 at 8:34pm

    Hi John.

      The lighting came from Urban Drones, as I mentioned to Nick, I forgot to mention I added some colored Led strips also as the lights from urban drones are all white, and I needed different colors to help with orientation.

    The low light camera came from 3DR. I would mention the lense that came with it had a narrow field of view and wasn't good for FPV, so I got another lens that was wide from ReadyMadeRC that works great. The nighttime mode is really good on this camera yet it also does a great job in daylight.




  • Richard Evans July 22, 2013 at 8:26pm

    Hi Nick

    The lights came from a light kit sold by Urban drones. They connect to a spare receiver channel to be programmed to several different lighting patterns.

  • Nick Scott July 18, 2013 at 11:05pm

    I would also like to know how you set up your lights

  • HeliStorm July 18, 2013 at 10:57pm
    You should have dubbed over the famous Rush song about flying by night...or the music from Close Encounters. Were there any reported UFOs in your area that evening? Great flying!
  • LanMark July 18, 2013 at 9:50pm

    nice

  • Muhammad Al-Rawi July 18, 2013 at 8:43pm

    Night flying is a real thrill.

    The camera is a nice touch. Do share your setup :) 

  • John July 18, 2013 at 8:14pm

    Very cool! Do you mind sharing your lights and low light camera setup and hardware info? Would be great to get some night flying in.

This reply was deleted.