Russian Satellite Takes Most Detailed 121-Megapixel Image of Earth Yet

Diggester writes "The satellite, known as Elektro-L No.1, took an image from its stationary point over 35,000 kilometers above the Indian Ocean. This is the most detailed image of the Earth yet available, capturing the Earth in a single shot with 121-megapixels. NASA satellites use a collection of pictures from multiple flybys stitched together. The detail in the pic is just amazing."

Comments

Re:Upside down?

[INT_QRK]

Well, you'd be right if North was actually up. However, it's settled science that West is actually up given that the sun and planets rotate top to bottom down the solar system's vertical plane.

Re:Wait, what?

[Beardo the Bearded]

The Russian method, as linked in the article, is one large picture. It's actually a composite of different wavelengths, which is really cool. The rust effect is from the IR reflection of vegetation.

When NASA does it, as in the pictures that aren't this one, they stitch together a composite.

Re:Looks terrible

[Hadlock]

WHAT

chromatic abberation in MY 1.21 gigapixel space photo?

this was NOT the future I was promised

send it back

Re:why do Russian and US colors vary so much?

[arth1]

I really dislike the 2012 Blue Marble, due to the very visible stripes where it's been quilted. It may have far more pixels, but I think the original 1972 Apollo 17 image is far more visually impressive.

But to me, nothing so far beats this 43 year old photo.
That's my home, there!

Re:121 Mpixels vs photographic film

[mk1004]

The cameras used in the Apollo program included a 70mm Hasselblad. IIRC, years ago as digital cameras struggled to pass the 2 to 3 megapixel range, it was said that to be equivalent to 35mm, you'd need 15-18 megapixel. That was, I believe, to match the grain densities of 64 or 100 speed film. So scale that up about 4x to go from 35mm to 70mm. I'd say those Hasselblads did just fine.