Tag Archives: Imagery

Have You Ever Wondered How Much Imagery High Resolution Satellites Collect?

Posted on May 7 2013 by Katie

Well, we definitely have! So in this monthly piece, we pick a high resolution satellite, a time period and a geography, and then report key statistics on the total amount of imagery collected. So without further ado, let’s jump into our analysis.

  • Graphic Region of Interest: southern Africa (as defined in the accompanying map)
  • Land Mass Covered: 9,281,242 square kilometers (sq km)
  • Time Period: December 1, 2012 to February 28, 2013
  • High Resolution Satellite: WorldView-2

Southern Africa WorldView-2 Imaging Statistics

  • Total Area Collected: 3,341,836  sq km; ~37,132 sq km per day
  • Area Collected @ 20% or Less Clouds & 30

    • … Read more

GFAQ – Why Is My Imagery All Black?

Posted on February 7 2013 by Katie

For this month’s Geospatial Frequently Asked Question (G-FAQ), I offer a freeware solution to a problem many of you may have encountered when downloading free Landsat and/or ASTER data: you open the file and the imagery is simply a big black tile! You might even ask yourself, “What? Did I download the imagery incorrectly?!”
Well, the answer is a resounding, “Nothing is wrong, you just need to color balance that data!” While I have explored the topic of color balancing in previous G-FAQs (you can read more here, Part 1 and Part 2), the discussion was meant for advanced … Read more

Free For All – Earth as Art

Posted on January 10 2013 by Katie

Through Earth as Art, NASA makes fascinating and beautiful images of our home planet freely available and easily accessible to the public. This compilation of Earth-centric imagery pulls from a full range of NASA satellites and their many band combinations to create imagery worthy of any museum. To celebrate the many years of discovery and observation, the ‘best’ Earth as Art images have been compiled into a publication. Each image is accompanied by a brief description of the natural phenomenon captured, the imaging satellite and some interesting facts about the local geography.

… Read more
Salt lakes and sand dunes inhabit the Turpan

Image Hunter – The Industry’s Only Multi-Source Imagery Search Tool

Posted on January 10 2013 by Katie

Have you had a chance to test out our online imagery search engine, Image Hunter? If not, give it a test drive now as all orders placed with Image Hunter will receive a 5% discount!

Image Hunter can be accessed 24 hours a day, 7 days a week and is a one-stop shop for every major source of medium and high resolution satellite imagery on the market today, including:

  • WorldView-2
  • QuickBird
  • WorldView-1
  • GeoEye-1
  • IKONOS
  • Pléiades 1 (coming soon)
  • The SPOT constellation (coming soon)

If any of our readers have struggled with other geospatial search engines that are clunky; only … Read more

Technical Commissioning of SPOT 6 Successfully Completed

Posted on January 10 2013 by Katie


A small portion of the first 1.5-meter natural color image collected by SPOT 6 was over Bora Bora, it was posted by Astrium GEO on September 13, 2012. © CNES 2012, Distribution Astrium Services / Spot Image S.A., France, all rights reserved.

Another small portion of the first 1.5-meter natural color image collected by SPOT 6 was over Bora Bora, it was posted by Astrium GEO on September 13, 2012. © CNES 2012, Distribution Astrium Services / Spot Image S.A., France, all rights reserved.

December 14, 2012 – SPOT 6 was officially declared “good to go” after the completion of … Read more

Monthly Update on Astrium’s High Resolution Satellite, Pléiades 1A

Posted on January 10 2013 by Katie

Pléiades 1A was joined in space by its twin, Pléiades 1B, during December which means a doubling of collection capacity and daily revisits for the high-resolution satellite constellation in the coming months. Keep your eyes on future editions of The Geospatial Times for updates on the status of Pléiades 1B.

Pléiades 1A has been in orbit since December 2011 and if you have not had a chance to check out any sample imagery, take a few moments and have a look at the gallery on our website. If you work with high resolution imagery, you should consider Pléiades 1A … Read more

Pleiades 1, Astrium’s High Resolution Satellite, Launches on December 16, 2011

Posted on January 14 2012 by Admin

50-cm resolution orthorectified products for applications requiring a high level of detail

  • A phased orbit and a daily revisit, combined with extreme agility, for information in record time
  • The first component of a four-satellite constellation, for an ideal match of detail, coverage and revisit

Following the recent success of the first Soyuz launch from the French Spaceport in Guiana, Astrium Services’ GEO-Information division, a leading global provider of geo-information products and services, is pleased to inform its customers and partners that Arianespace successfully launched Pléiades 1 on December 16th, 2011.

Pléiades 1 is the first component of a two high-resolution … Read more