Many years ago (1984) I was involved in the very first hackerspace (no really just ask the original Robot Group members) in Austin called Discovery Hall, it was billed as a hands-on science museum and was patterned after (as well as worked with) the Exploratorium in San Francisco. – Texas Archival Resources Online
I’m currently leading a meetup group called Nature Nerds Austin – https://www.meetup.com/Nature-Nerds-of-Austin/ – and we work with several groups around the country on hands-on science/technology activities (we eschew computer focused projects because everybody and their aunt Gertrude is already doing that), we do however have no problem using computers as part of a process/tool-chain.
So, where this is leading is that I’m interested in doing a high altitude balloon project that would consists of several flights. At least one component of those flights is to take image and video during the flight. In particular I’m interested in using CCD wiithout the IR filter in order to pick up the near IR. One reason is to do spectral analysis to determine if the plants and trees are healthy. Another project might be a Rockoon flight. – Rockoon - Wikipedia(from%20rocket%20and,from%20the%20balloon%20and%20ignited.
So… My question is are there any other members interested in Citizen/Amateur Science in general (as this is not the only project running around my insane mind)?
The Amateur Scientist – The Amateur Scientist - Wikipedia
The Amateur Scientist by C.L. Strong – http://www.ke5fx.com/stong.pdf
I worked with Shawn Carlson in the early 90s when he was setting up the SAS group. I was focused on making very inexpensive spun mirror epoxy telescopes to reduce the cost of making large aperture scopes (unfortunately there were issues with low viscosity epoxies that 3M could not resolve) – Shawn Carlson - Wikipedia
I was the co-developer and ran the primary node of the Cypherpunks distributed mailing list – Cypherpunk - Wikipedia
I was one of the three co-founders of the first Linux user group in Texas, CTLUG in 1994 – https://www.ctlug.org/ – Talk to Rob Ristroph about that as he was one of the early members.