DIY balloon camera photos from 90,000 feet

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A group of high school students at Oakland's Youth Radio, a terrific organization that teaches journalism, production, and tech to underserved young people, launched a $69 weather balloon carrying a $5 styrofoam cooler and digital camera to a height of 90,000 feet above the Bay Area. The camera captured this magnificent photo faintly showing the curvature of the Earth. From Youth Radio's Turnstyle news site:

The students planned the launch of the balloon using Google Maps, the CUSF Landing Predictor and terminal area charts of the San Francisco Bay Area. They also programmed the camera to take pictures every couple of seconds , and installed InstaMapper software to track the balloon's trajectory.

"The Weather Balloon Project"