

In January, we looked at the Periot Moreno Glacier located in Los Glaciares National Park in southwest Santa Cruz Province, Argentina. This month for the Pléiades 1 – Pléiades Neo Point of Interest, we check out Hong Kong and its New Year celebration.
About the Point of Interest: Chinese New Year’s Day marks the beginning of the Spring Festival holiday, which is the biggest holiday in China. The Chinese New Year Parade is one of the most popular events for the Hong Kong Chinese New Year celebrations. It attracts tens of thousands of visitors who enjoy the colorful parade. The night parade begins at 8 PM. but pre-parade street performances typically begin at 6 PM. On the second day of the Spring Festival, Victoria Harbor makes for the perfect setting for a giant fireworks display with choreographed pyrotechnics. The show lasts around 25 minutes and typically coincides with the record-setting Symphony of Lights event. Known as the most popular races of all, the Chinese New Year Horse Races draws 100,000 excited fans to the Sha Tin Racecourse on the third day of the holidays. During the Spring Lantern Festival, which marks the end of the Chinese New Year, Hong Kong will be decorated with thousands of colorful lanterns. It is a tradition to hold a lantern carnival at Tsim Sha Tsui in the Hong Kong Cultural Centre Piazza. In addition to lantern displays, visitors can catch performances such as acrobatics, folk songs and dances.
Fun Factoids: (1) In 2025, the Chinese New Year falls on January 29. In Hong Kong, people celebrate three public holidays from January 29 to January 31. (2) The three days include a night parade, fireworks and horse racing. (3) One of the biggest activities during the Hong Kong New Year celebration is the tradition of decorating items with flowers and plants, and also giving them as gifts, which many believe can bring good luck. (4) Another long-established tradition for locals is to go to Lam Tsuen in the New Territories to pray for good luck during the Chinese New Year period. (5) The 2025 fireworks show, which runs 12 minutes and is themed “The Symphony of Happiness,” embraces the concept of metal, wood, water, fire and earth, reflecting people’s connection to nature while celebrating the passion, joy, resilience and hope in everyone’s lives. The fireworks display features four special effects, including a first-ever feature for Hong Kong in 2025. (6) At the Wong Tai Sin Temple, visitors can light incense and honor Wong Tai Sin for good fortune.
The 50-cm Pléiades 1 High-Resolution Satellite Constellation
The Pléiades 1 constellation (or at least part of it!) 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 1 and Pléiades Neo for your next geospatial projects.
A variety of Pléiades 1 products are available from both a well-established archive and as a new collection, including 50-centimeter (cm) pansharpened imagery and 50-cm panchromatic – 2-meter (m) 4-band multispectral bundles. We are happy to discuss the technical specifications, pricing and tasking options available with both of these satellite constellations.
The 30-cm Pléiades Neo High-Resolution Satellite Constellation
Pléiades Neo is our newest high-resolution satellite constellation. The first Neo satellite went up in April 2021 and the second in August of the same year. This 30-centimeter resolution constellation will add two more satellites in the next few months and upgrade from daily to intraday revisits. Pléiades Neo has six multispectral bands with 1.2-meter resolution, including a deep blue and two infrared bands, along with a 30-centimeter resolution panchromatic band.
The archive is growing every day, and the satellites are available for new collections, making Pléiades Neo the perfect solution for site monitoring. Check out our beautiful sample images in the Pléiades Neo gallery.
More sample images and technical information about Pléiades 1 can be found on our website here; while the same can be found here for the Pléiades Neo constellation.
The Apollo Mapping sales team can answer any questions you might have about Pléiades 1 and/or Pléiades Neo. We can be reached at (303) 993-3863 or sales@apollomapping.com.
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