CWU students partner with NASA for eclipse project

Central Washington University students will be both watching and researching Monday’s total eclipse.

University physics professor Darci Snowden will lead a seven-member student team that will launch a specially designed balloon from a site about 45 miles north of Bend, Oregon. Equipped with imaging cameras and sensors, the balloon will help capture—and provide—a livestream video of the eclipse from above 80,000 feet.

Snowden, says the helium-filled balloon will be about six feet in diameter at launch, as it rises it will grow to about six times as large, and ultimately, pop. On-board tracking systems will allow it to, hopefully, be recovered.

The eclipse video stream will be available at: eclipse.stream.live