<p>Long ago I was part of a group that flew high altitude balloons to study x-rays from pulsars etc. How much you detect and at what energy depends upon how much atmosphere is above your detector. Lower energy x-rays are absorbed more than higher energy x-rays. Realistically you won't detect anything except maybe the Sun at energies below 20 keV and at altitude below 25km. We aimed for altitudes near 40km. To detect high energy x-rays the cheapest method is to use a proportional counter. Not something you can buy off-the-shelf. </p>

<p>Also the Sun only emits a lot of high energy x-rays during solar flares.</p>

<p>An interesting experiment would be to fly a geiger counter see <a href="http://earthtosky.net/" rel="nofollow">http://earthtosky.net/</a></p>

CC BY-SA 3.0
2016-04-27T11:42:07.847Z
2016-04-27T11:42:07.847Z
TazAstroSpacial
<p>Some colleagues and I were planning to launch a stratospheric balloon in December. A thought occurred to me: what if we were to put some sort of xray camera in the payload? We are expecting a maximum altitude of about 80,000 feet. Would it work any better at that altitude? </p>

CC BY-SA 3.0
2015-09-24T21:12:18.523Z
Not much better at that height.  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/X-ray_astronomy#Balloons
BowlOfRed
<x-ray>
Stratospheric Balloon with an Xray camera
TheLabyrinthMaker
# Stratospheric Balloon with an Xray camera

(Asked by: username_0 on 2015-09-24)

Some colleagues and I were planning to launch a stratospheric balloon in December. A thought occurred to me: what if we were to put some sort of xray camera in the payload? We are expecting a maximum altitude of about 80,000 feet. Would it work any better at that altitude?

**Tags:** x-ray

> **Comments:**
> **username_1**: Not much better at that height.  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/X-ray_astronomy#Balloons  

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## 1 answers

### Answer by username_2 on 2016-04-27. Score: 2

Long ago I was part of a group that flew high altitude balloons to study x-rays from pulsars etc. How much you detect and at what energy depends upon how much atmosphere is above your detector. Lower energy x-rays are absorbed more than higher energy x-rays. Realistically you won't detect anything except maybe the Sun at energies below 20 keV and at altitude below 25km. We aimed for altitudes near 40km. To detect high energy x-rays the cheapest method is to use a proportional counter. Not something you can buy off-the-shelf.

Also the Sun only emits a lot of high energy x-rays during solar flares.

An interesting experiment would be to fly a geiger counter see <http://earthtosky.net/>


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