A camera that can capture detail to more than a billion pixels is now on sale claims Amateur Photographer.

First used by NASA, GigaPan technology is the concept of scientists who engineered the cameras on the Mars rover vehicle.

The consumer version is designed to be compatible with a ‘standard consumer digital camera’ to create ‘incredibly high-resolution panoramic images’, say Charmed Labs, the inventors.

‘It accomplishes this by precisely manipulating the camera’s pan-and-tilt gaze with precision motors while taking many, possibly hundreds of pictures,’ said a spokesman for the company which is making the product available to the general public.

Free software is used to stitch the pictures together to create a ‘seamless panoramic image’.

The ‘beta’ version costs under £200 and works with ‘most off-the-shelf digital cameras’.

Charmed Labs state that when an image is viewed on a computer screen, small details can be seen in fine detail when zooming-in on an object or person miles away in the background of the panoramic picture.