I was catching up with an old work associate and he turned me onto launching a weather balloon(camera attached taking pictures) with my kids. I felt that my kids were a little young, but that it would be a great idea for the teachers and priest in the ward. Some MIT students had done it on the cheap and I used their work as a guide.

The young men did like the idea, and we plotted and planned.

We had some struggles getting the weather balloon here. Twice they messed up the order. But in the end we launched out of desperation. Lest anyone worry, I did contact the FAA in Salt Lake and we were on the up and up.

We launched 7th Heaven, the name of our contraption, from Vernon Utah, 60 minutes west of American Fork, at 9:08am. The styrofoam box that housed the camera and GPS cellphone was swinging like a pendulum the whole way. I was sure that box was going to be ripped apart, but it held together without problem. The balloon climbed to and estimated 115000 feet taking pictures every 10 seconds. The weather balloon, initially filled to about 6 feet in diameter, swelled to over 23 feet in diameter and finally burst at 10:18am. 7th Heaven finally touched down at 10:49am. When under 20000 feet its GPS data was sent to a website and as a result finding it for retrieval was easy.

Here some pictures that it took along its journey.

A ward member did some photoshop magic.  Its rather good I think.

Here is one of what it looked like.