It’s nice to see that the global recession hasn’t kept artists from low-budget innovation.

The Atlantic’s Daily Dish turned us on to a cinematographer in Oxnard, CA, who built a homemade high-altitude weather balloon with two second-hand digital cameras he bought on Ebay (for only $45) that captured beautiful video images from 24 miles above the Earth’s surface.

DIY-tinkerer Colin Rich built his device with styrofoam and duct-tape to prevent the cameras from freezing at temperatures below -50F.

The balloon eventually burst at around 125,000 feet, which triggered a parachute to deploy, allowing the device to float safely down to land in Santa Paula, 15 miles away from where it was launched.

Pacific Star II from Colin Rich on Vimeo.

[Via –Huffingtonpost]