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Spectacular Photo of Saturn's Rings Created by Amateur Astronomer

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Saturn and Rings Mosaic by Ugarkovic
An amazing view of all of Saturn and its rings, assembled by Gordan Ugarkovic. (Image credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/Space Science Institute/G. Ugarkovic)

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.

Becky Oskin
Becky Oskin
Contributing Writer
Becky Oskin covers Earth science, climate change and space, as well as general science topics. Becky was a science reporter at Live Science and The Pasadena Star-News; she has freelanced for New Scientist and the American Institute of Physics. She earned a master's degree in geology from Caltech, a bachelor's degree from Washington State University, and a graduate certificate in science writing from the University of California, Santa Cruz.