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.
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.