Panoramas

Spherical panoramas are the source images for the VR tours of the observatories. Composed of multiple overlapping photographs, they depict everything that can be seen from a single location: a full 360 degree sweep in all directions. In the VR tour, it is as though this image were pasted on the inside of a large sphere, and you the viewer are standing inside looking at different parts of the image through the “window” of your device’s screen. If we take that same image, which fits perfectly on a sphere, and display it as a flat rectangular image, it becomes stretched and distorted in much the same way as a mercator map projection of the earth stretches the land masses towards the polar regions, distorting their shape and making them larger, while the areas nearer the equator are rendered with little distortion.

Note: Some of the panoramas show a fanciful “ribbon” along the bottom edge. These panoramas were generated from the virtual tours and incorporate the copyright emblem that can be seen when you look straight down in the virtual tour. The circular emblem has been stretched to a ribbon by the re-mapping process. Those without the ribbon were generated from the originals before the copyright was added.

My Image

This diagram illustrates how a spherical image maps to a 1:2 rectangle in an equirectangular projection. The visual information at top and bottom must be stretched to span the full width of the rectangle, while information at the center is relatively unaltered. If you look at a small area along the centerline (horizon) of any equirectangular projection, it will look much as it would if you were standing in front of the original subject. The areas towards the bottom and top of the picture are progressively more stretched and distorted.

Jai Prakash at the Delhi Observatory
Jai Prakash at the Delhi Observatory
Inside the Jai Prakash at the Delhi Observatory
Jai Prakash at the Delhi Observatory
Entry to the Jai Prakash at the Delhi Observatory
Jai Prakash and gnomon of the Samrat Yantra at the Delhi Observatory
The Ram Yantra at the Delhi Observatory
Interior of the Ram Yantra at the Delhi Observatory
View from the top of the Jai Prakash, including the Samrat Yantra (l) and Ram Yantra (r)
View from the top of the Jai Prakash showing the Ram Yantra (l) and Misra Yantra and Samrat Yantra (r)
Entry to the Jai Prakash at the Jaipur Observatory
Inside the Jai Prakash at the Jaipur Observatory
The Kappala Yantra at the Jaipur Observatory
The Jai Prakash, Nadivalaya, and Samrat Yantra at the Jaipur Observatory
West Quadrant of the Samrat Yantra at the Jaipur Observatory
View from thetop of the East quadrant at the Jaipur Observatory
Inside the Digamsa Yantra at the Ujjain Observatory
Quadrants of the Samrat Yantra at the Ujjain Observatory
View of the Ujjain Observatory from the top of the Samrat Yantra
Quadrants of the Samrat Yantra at the Varanasi Observatory