Low Cost Digital Video Camera
A Good Fit For Model Rockets!

SPYPEN sells for about $90 on-line at

It's a very light-weight camera, capable of shooting about 40 seconds of video at 9 frames per second.  Video must be downloaded to a computer and plays back as an .avi file.  

                    the full 40 second .avi clip (4MB).  Camera was launched with a
G-40 motor over the dry lakebed of Black Rock Desert, Nevada.  Not many visible objects on the ground, but a good preview of coming attractions!  

                   an edited and compressed .avi clip (714KB).  Video quality degraded by compression.  

SPYPEN must be mounted so the shutter button remains depressed during flight.  Here are a few pictures of the camera mounted in the payload bay, mirror and fairing, and method for activating the shutter.