Cassini captures stunning mosaic of Saturn

An amateur astronomer has stitched together 36 images snapped by NASA's Cassini space probe to produce a spectacular image of Saturn and its rings.

An amazing new view of Saturn, created by amateur image processer Gordan Ugarkovic, shows the planet and its rings in all their glory.

Ugarkovic, a Croatian computer programmer, assembled the incredible image from 36 shots snapped by the Cassini spacecraft on Oct. 10. He combined a dozen each of red, green and blue filter images into the stunning mosaic.

"I try to be measured in my praise for spacecraft images," wrote Emily Lakdawalla of the Planetary Society, the first to spot the image in Ugarkovic's Flickr stream. "But this enormous mosaic showing the flattened globe of Saturn floating amongst the complete disk of its rings must surely be counted among the great images of the Cassini mission."

NASA's Cassini spacecraft has been in orbit around Saturn for almost nine years. It is expected to study the ringed planet and its moons until 2017.

See more photos by Ugarkovic here: http://www.flickr.com/photos/ugordan/.

Editor's note: If you snap an amazing picture of any night sky view that you'd like to share for a possible story or image gallery, send photos, comments and your name and location to managing editor Tariq Malik at spacephotos@space.com.

Email Becky Oskin or follow her @beckyoskin. Follow us @Spacedotcom, Facebook or Google+. Originally published on SPACE.com.

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