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Zoom around Tokyo in an epic 150-gigapixel image

A photographer shoots more than 10,000 images to create one of the greatest panoramas ever captured of Japan's capital.

Christopher MacManus
Crave contributor Christopher MacManus regularly spends his time exploring the latest in science, gaming, and geek culture -- aiming to provide a fun and informative look at some of the most marvelous subjects from around the world.
Christopher MacManus
See the skyscrapers of Tokyo or the finer details of city streets near the Tokyo Tower. 360cities.net

A visit to Tokyo would certainly be a tremendous achievement for any bucket list, but it's not exactly easy -- let alone cheap -- for most of us to visit the Japanese mecca. In the meantime, this super high-resolution 360-degree, 150-gigapixel panorama will certainly give you a rare look-see at the mammoth city.

Over the course of six hours, photographer and 360cities.net founder Jeffery Martin captured the fascinating 600,000 pixel-wide panorama upon the roof of the lower observation deck on the Tokyo Tower. A high-powered Fujitsu computer -- packing 192GB of RAM, 2 quad-core Xeon processors, and a 4GB graphics card -- spent three months stitching together the mosaic from 10,000 individual photos captured by Martin.

An example of how far you can zoom into this panorama captured from the 20th floor of the Tokyo Tower. 360cities.net

To access the larger-than-life 360-degree panorama of Tokyo, simply click here or use the embedded panorama below.

Martin's rig used for the capture would certainly impress any photography enthusiast. For the job, he used a Canon 7D dSLR with a 400mm f5.6L lens attached to a Clauss Rodeon VR Head ST robotic panorama head. Amazingly, if someone was daring enough to print this Tokyo panorama, it would stretch 328 feet long and stand 124 feet tall. Can you imagine how much the ink would cost for that printout?