In this monthly article, we travel the world to check out unique, fun and sometimes a bit weird 30-centimeter (cm) color imagery samples from the WorldView constellation. In September, we looked at Ovnipuerto in Cachi, Argentina. For this edition of the 30-cm Color WorldView Image of the Month, we feature an image of Deno’s Wonder Wheel Amusement Park in Brooklyn, New York.
Deno’s Wonder Wheel not only stands as a landmark in New York City, but also as a world-famous icon. Invented by Charles Hermann, it was built in 1920 by the Eccentric Ferris Wheel Company using 100% Bethlehem steel forged right on Coney Island beach. Deno’s Wonder Wheel celebrated its 100th anniversary in 2020. The Wonder Wheel stands 150 feet tall, the equivalent of a 15-story building. It also weighs 200 tons and features 24 cars – 16 swing and eight are stationary. The swinging cars slide on a serpentine track towards the hub of the wheel and as the wheel turns, they slide toward the circumference. Each car holds six people for a total ride capacity of 144. On June 7, 1983, Denos D. Vourderis bought the Wonder Wheel from Fred Garms, whose father Herman was its first owner-operator, and it became Deno’s Wonder Wheel. The Vourderis family went to work restoring the wheel to pristine condition and made it the centerpiece of Deno’s Wonder Wheel Amusement Park. According to the park owners, the wheel offers incredible views from 150 feet high atop Coney Island stretching across the Atlantic Ocean, the Boardwalk and the beach all the way to the Manhattan skyline. The Wonder Wheel reflects an orange hue and seemingly glows in the amusement park. The 30-cm WorldView Legion image featured here was collected on October 26, 2024, and has custom processing and color balance applied by Apollo Mapping. (Satellite Imagery © 2026 Vantor)
Do you enjoy the high-resolution satellite imagery we post monthly in this article and elsewhere in The Geospatial Times? If so, head over to our Reddit subgroup, HighResSatelliteImage, where we post some our favorite high-resolution satellite images on a weekly basis.
30-cm WorldView-3 (WV3) launched in late 2014, WorldView-4 (WV4) launched in late 2016 and then the first WorldView Legion satellites launched in 2024. Taken together, this is the most advanced satellite constellation the commercial marketplace has ever had access to. Here are a few of the features that really set these satellites apart from the competition:
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- Improved Resolution
- Higher resolution means you can see more detail in WorldView imagery.
- Data collected at nadir will have 31-centimeter (cm) panchromatic, 1.24-meter (m) visible and near infrared, 3.7-m SWIR (WV3 only) and 30-m CAVIS (WV3 only) bands.
- Improved Resolution
- Additional Spectral Bands
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- If spectral analysis is part of your project, then no other satellite can match WorldView-3 and WorldView Legion with their 8 bands of visible and near-infrared data; and then 8 shortwave infrared bands (WV3 only) which are crucial for geological studies.
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- Better Positional Accuracy
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- With accuracies of 3.5-m CE90% or better (without ground control even!), the 30-cm WorldView constellation has no rivals for its enhanced positional accuracy.
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- Daily Revisits
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- With multiple WorldView-3 and WorldView Legion satellites orbiting our planet, daily revisits are available for most locations.
- WV4 is no longer collecting new imagery.
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- Increased Collection Capacity
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- WV3/4 feature 13.1-km swath widths (at nadir) with the ability to collect up to 680,000 square kilometers (sq km) of high-resolution data per day per satellite (though WV4 is dead now).
- WorldView Legion features six 30-cm satellites, significantly boosting the collection capacity of this leading high-resolution constellation.
If you are interested in WorldView-3, WorldView-4 and/or WorldView Legion imagery for your next project, please let us know by phone, 303-993-3863, or by email, sales@apollomapping.com.
You can also find more WV3 samples and technical information on our website here; WV4 samples and information can be found here; and then finally here is more information about WorldView Legion.
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