How to produce photographs of space for $150

Move out of the way NASA as two students from MIT have successfully taken a series of images showing the Earth's curvature and space for $150.

Justin Lee and Oliver Yeh's supplies which included a Canon A470, a Motorola i290 Prepaid mobile phone used as a GPS receiver and a weather balloon filled with helium went 17.5 miles high into the uppermost parts of the stratosphere.

The device, which was built without any significant modifications to the electronics, returned to earth five hours later and was found around 20 miles away from the launch site.

After the launch, the two students founded 1337arts which they say is 'dedicated to celebrating the marriage of art and science and promoting the beauty of scientific art'.