MIT Students Launch a Near-Space Camera for $150

By: Julian Chavez | Photo Credit: 1337 Arts/Justin Lee and Oliver Yeh | September 17, 2009 | Technology

With a budget less than a month’s worth of utility bills, these two students were able to capture a photo of the curvature of the Earth from 93,000 feet up.  To achieve the altitude they needed, the two fashioned a helium filled weather balloon to a styrofoam cooler where the Canon camera was housed.  They hacked into the camera using the CHDK open source firmware, which allowed them to set the device to take pictures every five seconds, which were then stored on the 8 GB media card.  To keep the camera warm enough to still function at the colder temperatures of the stratosphere, they throw in some instant hand warmers.  Finally, in order to find their device after it fell back to earth, they included a cheap cellphone with a GPS locater bringing the grand total of expenses to $148.  It took over 40 minutes for their housed camera to fall back to ground after the balloon popped.  The below photo is from 19 miles above earth:

More info and photos can be found at: http://space.1337arts.com/

 

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