Technology derived from NASA’s equipment used in the Mars rovers has been used to create a highly unusual image of President Barack Obama’s Jan. 20th inauguration.
According to, NASA, photographer David Bergman used the Gigapan camera to capture 220 images and stitch them together into a seamless 1,474-megapixel image. The technology is based on the panorama system that Mars rovers Spirit and Opportunity used, and was developed by NASA and Carnegie Mellon University.
Universe Today has a fun quick overview, and more detailed info about the camera system can be found at NASA.gov.
The main event, the amazing picture, can be seen in its change-lovin’ glory at the Gigapan site, in a format that lets you pan and zoom. You don’t really get the full, awe-inspiring enormity of the friggin’ thing until you fly around a bit in the image. Individual faces are in plenty of resolution to recognize, which I’m sure could be of infinite utility to the Secret Service in semi-related situations.
Zoom in on a face or two; see anyone you know? See yourself? Yes we can, beeyatches!
Image is a screenshot from Gigapan.org.