This amazing photo of Earth cost only $750 to take

Hello, Earth! Can you believe that this photo was taken by a man who attached a digital camera to a balloon? Madness.

There’s actually not too much involved here. You take a helium-filled, high-altitude balloon, strap a digital camera to it, and off you go. The camera goes up (that’s 22 miles above the surface of the planet), takes a photo every five minutes, then it comes floating down to Earth on a parachute. A simple GPS, not too different from the one in your car right now, gives the location of the camera when it comes back down.

It’s the space-photography equivalent of macaroni glued to construction paper.

Total cost? Around $750. That’s less than what I spent to build the PC I’m writing this post with. Clearly Robert Harrison, the UK chap who put all of this together, is cooler than I’ll ever be.

This post is tagged: balloon, camera, Car, chap, construction, construction paper, cost, digital camera, Digital Cameras, down to earth, Earth, equivalent, five minutes, gps, Harrison, Headline, Helium, hello earth, high altitude balloon, location, macaroni, madness, man, Paper, parachute, PC I, photo, Photography, planet, post, Robert, robert harrison, space, space photography, strap, Surface, UK