Russian weather satellite takes an awesome 121 megapixel photo of earth in a single capture, and records time lapse of a few days.
The image above was taken by a Russian weather satellite called Elektro-L No.1. At 121 megapixels, it’s the largest single image of Earth ever taken – Nasa’s famous Blue Marble was stitched together from multiple captures and tops out at a still impressive 64 megapixels. Elektro-L’s camera was capturing infrared wavelengths as well, hence the false reddish-brown colours instead of the usual greens for forests.
View the full-sized image over at Gigapan.
Even more impressive than the still image is this time lapse shot by Elektro-L, covering a few days over the Asian continent. The fact that the video lacks sound makes it reminiscent of Stanley Kubrick’s classic “2001: A Space Odyssey”!
This was made possible by the fact that the satellite is locked in a geostationary orbit, i.e. it’s always above the same spot on earth, and thus it always photographs the same side of planet.
Via PhotoGuides.
