Sharpest photo of Jupiter from Earth

This is the sharpest "whole Jupiter" photo ever taken from Earth. It was snapped with a telescope using special adaptive optics to reduce fuzz. From National Geographic:

Captured using a new computer-assisted process and a 27-foot (8.2-meter) telescope in Chile, the result is sharp enough to show features as small as 180 miles (300 kilometers) across...

Adaptive optics, (UC Berkeley/SETI Institute astronomer Franck) Marchis said, adjusts for distortions caused by the Earth's atmosphere, "providing images as if the telescope was in space."

New Jupiter Image: Sharpest View Ever From Earth

UPDATE: In the comments, DAEMON kindly posted a link to the full res image!

[#1 posted by Justin Ried , October 6, 2008 10:34 AM]

That's gorgeous. Is a hi-res version available? The article doesn't mention one.

[#2 posted by Daemon , October 6, 2008 10:34 AM]

Needs a link to a full resolution...

http://www.eso.org/public/outreach/press-rel/pr-2008/phot-33-08.html

[#3 posted by Justin Ried , October 6, 2008 10:36 AM]

Daemon read my mind.

[#4 posted by SamF , October 6, 2008 10:40 AM]

I can see my house from here!

[#5 posted by phillamb168 , October 6, 2008 10:40 AM]

What's interesting is the color doesn't match the standard Jupiter photos you see everywhere. Is this because of the anti-aberration tech, or is this what it actually looks like?

[#6 posted by David Pescovitz , October 6, 2008 10:40 AM]

Thanks, DAEMON! I updated my post.

[#7 posted by KurtMac , October 6, 2008 10:48 AM]

@#5 PHILLAMB168: The full-res link explains in better detail, but these images were taken at "infrared wavelengths where absorption due to hydrogen and methane is strong. This explains why the colours are different from how we usually see Jupiter in visible-light."

[#8 posted by Nixar , October 6, 2008 10:58 AM]

You should credit the ESO (European Southern Observatory) and the VLT (Very Large Telescope)

[#9 posted by royaltrux , October 6, 2008 11:16 AM]

Thanks, Kurtmac, I've been wondering about that since this image surfaced last week.

[#10 posted by anthropomorphictoast , October 6, 2008 11:45 AM]

ooOooooooh. Pretty.

[#11 posted by technogeek , October 6, 2008 12:16 PM]

Desktopped. (Replaces earth-from-space which was previously on this machine.)

Not quite good enough to replace the nighttime picture of an Apollo waiting for launch on my other machine, though. And variety is a Good Thing anyway.

[#12 posted by Drew from Zhrodague , October 6, 2008 12:18 PM]

Let's go there and check it out!!!

[#13 posted by franko , October 6, 2008 12:24 PM]

wow....
wow, wow, wow.

... it's BLUER than i always imagined...

[#14 posted by zandar , October 6, 2008 12:28 PM]

Jupiter looks delicious. Now, for a quarter-million mile wide sesame seed bun.

[#15 posted by Ugly Canuck , October 6, 2008 7:46 PM]

Fantastic...I remember the first Voyager pix of jupiter back in 1979-80, nobody was prepared for the baroque complexity of the clouds, neither in color nor form. A psychedelic-looking planet, when compared to the images of Mars, Venus, Earth, Mercury and our Moon then available.
Nice to see Earth-based telescopy getting so fine, can't wait for the next-gen space telescope to see first light.

[#16 posted by Takuan , October 6, 2008 8:44 PM]

http://www.hao.ucar.edu/Public/education/img/galileo_jupiter.gif

[#17 posted by CptNemo , October 7, 2008 3:14 AM]

To be honest, I was expecting to see more detail.

http://www.damianpeach.com/jup_07.htm

This is a sample of what an amateur can do with a few thousand dollars worth of equipment, a lot of skill and time.

I think the amateur results are very close indeed to the resolution of this image.

Maybe it meant to say highest resolution IR image or something.