To the Utah Astonomy Club.... I recently sent out an email to Patrick Wiggins telling him of a project where we launched a helium balloon into the stratosphere, where we had camera equipment to take pictures for us and GPS and barometric equipment to track where and how high the balloon went. We were very excited about the project. We got back some very cool pictures of the stratosphere where it reached a height of just over 108,000 feet. Here is a link to our site which contains pictures and additional details: http://sites.google.com/site/viewearthfromspace/ There is also a little write-up of our project, which we named project Pegasus, in the Deseret News: http://www.deseretnews.com/article/705354180/Utahns-aposballoonapos-into-str... We are looking to do an additional launch this coming spring where we do a pre-dawn launch where at the apex of the balloon flight we would like to capture the sun peaking around the back side of the earth. We are also trying to coordinate a night launch where there is some astronomical event occurring such as (meteor showers, eclipse, etc.) These two different things may or may not be able to be achieved on a single launch. What we are reaching out to each of you is if you have any input on a couple of the following questions: 1) Based on a launch of 100,000 feet and launching from approx Fort Collins, Colorado, what time in the morning do you think the camera in the balloon cargo would see the sun peaking around the earth at approx. 100,000 feet? 2) What are up-coming astronomical events would you consider being a nice time to plan the launch around? Also, we welcome input for other considerations that we may not be aware of. We are aware that the experience your club has is really helpful to make up for the lack of experience on our side. Thanks for your time and feel free to add comments to our website or respond to this email. We would also be open to coming to any of your upcoming gatherings to discuss any of this in person. Thanks Again, Jonathan and Mihir <utah-astronomy@mailman.xmission.com>