high altitude ballooning has been around for a long time.

only until recently, people have started to put a digital camera, and mcu-programmed timer so that the camera will snap pictures as the balloon goes up to 100,000ft or more - the record for manned flight is about 100,000ft (30km), achieved by the USAF way back and not ever since duplicated.

here are some stories about high altitude ballooning.

http://www.sparkfun.com/commerce/news.php?id=389

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/05/27/technology/personaltech/27basics.html?scp=1&sq=high%20altitude%20balloon&st=cse

some breath taking pictures.


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the favored cameras are Canon (especially the A-series) because they can be reprogrammed. check out the Canon Hack Development Kit.

to recover the camera, you will need to have a gps module on the camera to send back its coordinates so you can picture up the camera.

fascinating stories.