Stunning Saturn !!

[MacSA]

Anyone got a nice 30" Cinema Display? My 15" screen doesn't do this image justice.

http://antwrp.gsfc.nasa.gov/apod/astropix.html

As a present to APOD readers, digital imager Mattias Malmer offers a very high resolution view of big beautiful Saturn. A labor of love, his full mosaic, composite image is contained in a large 5 megabyte jpeg file and spans the gorgeous gas giant from ring tip to ring tip. It was pieced together from 102 frames (N00020905 to N00021033) recorded by the Cassini spacecraft ISS on October 6, 2004. The red, green, and blue frames are all uncalibrated, unvalidated images available to the public through the Cassini web site. Malmer's full panorama has a pixel size of 8400 by 3300, so only a substantially cropped version appears above. Enjoy the view and have a safe and Happy Holiday Season!

Full size 5MB image:
http://antwrp.gsfc.nasa.gov/apod/image/0412/saturn_malmerCassini_5m.jpg

 

[jsw]

Stunning!

 

[brap]

That is damn pretty.

Pity they've chosen not to make the full version available as a .tiff, there are some quite noticeable artifacts. Still. Awesome!

 

[Les Kern]

Into Photoshop, out as a desktop

 

[MacSA]

That is damn pretty.

Pity they've chosen not to make the full version available as a .tiff, there are some quite noticeable artifacts. Still. Awesome!

ALL the images from the Cassini spacecraft are posted online for the public to view, currently this is only in JPEG format - I think they have one year to start archiving the images and other data at the PDS (Planetary Data System) archive. This is in a lossless PNG format and also IMG format, which I think you need a program called NASA VIEW to view the images, although I think maybe GraphicConvertor may handle those images too. The first 90 days of images from the two Mars rovers area available already: http://anserver1.eprsl.wustl.edu/ The IMG format images are the best quality

http://pds.jpl.nasa.gov/

 

[palusami]

damn, what a nice xmas gift! beautiful picture. i'll use this as a desktop too!

 

[tech4all]

Nice

Very nice picture of Saturn. Especially since it doesn't even look real, but is.

 

[brap]

ALL the images from the Cassini spacecraft are posted online for the public to view, currently this is only in JPEG format - I think they have one year to start archiving the images and other data at the PDS (Planetary Data System) archive. This is in a lossless PNG format and also IMG format, which I think you need a program called NASA VIEW to view the images, although I think maybe GraphicConvertor may handle those images too. The first 90 days of images from the two Mars rovers area available already: http://anserver1.eprsl.wustl.edu/ The IMG format images are the best quality

http://pds.jpl.nasa.gov/

Yeah, but I'm lazy
Those Mars Rover images look cool though, though - thanks!

 

[Mr. Anderson]

Amazing - what really gets me is the detail and complexity of the rings....I Also like that small bit under the rings where the shadows are falling on Saturn.....

great stuff

D

 

[EGT]

That's an amazing picture! Thanks for sharing!

 

[Mike Teezie]

That's a real photograph?

It looks like a cg image to me...

 

[MacSA]

That's a real photograph?

It looks like a cg image to me...

If you read the text on the APOD site it tells you how it was produced.

It was pieced together from 102 frames (N00020905 to N00021033) recorded by the Cassini spacecraft ISS on October 6, 2004. The red, green, and blue frames are all uncalibrated, unvalidated images available to the public through the Cassini web site.