Last month we were in sunny Miami checking out the site of a crucial college football bowl season matchup, and for this New Year edition of the Pléiades 1 – SPOT 6/7 Stadium of the Month we check out the site of a key men’s non-conference college basketball matchup, i.e. West Virginia University (WVU) Coliseum, on the campus of the University of West Virginia.

Name & Its Origin: WVU Coliseum has been named so since the arena was opened in 1970 and its origin is obvious and non-imaginative as WVU Coliseum is named after West Virginia University – dersh.

A 50-cm color image of WVU Coliseum in Morgantown, West Virginia, USA collected on July 26, 2017 by Pléiades 1A; and then a 1.5-m SPOT 6 image of the same stadium collected on September 10, 2017! These images have custom processing and color balancing applied by Apollo Mapping. PLEIADES © CNES 2018, Distribution Airbus DS. SPOT © Airbus DS 2018.

Location: The Coliseum is located on the western side of the WVU campus in Morgantown less than a quarter mile (about a third of a kilometer) from the banks of the Monongahela River at about 1,035 feet (~315 meters) above sea level.

Stadium Capacity/Size, Architect & Build Date: Ground broke on the construction of the WVU Coliseum in December 1968 and was completed some two years later for its official opening on December 1, 1970. Designed by Silling Architects, the arena cost just $10.5 million to build. With room for 14,000 basketball fans, the Coliseum is often considered one of the most important buildings in West Virginia.

Type of Field Surface: Unfortunately no details were available on the flooring type used in WVU Coliseum so we will just have to assume it is hardwood!

Key Sports Teams: The Coliseum is the home of the men’s and women’s basketball team for the West Virginia University Mountaineers.

Most Popular Yearly Event: Besides hosting popular Big 12 conference basketball home games, the WVU Coliseum sees plenty of action outside of basketball season, for example a concert series which included Migos in 2017 as well as a Harlem Globetrotters game.

Fun Factoids: (1) On January 27, 2018, the WVU Coliseum will host a men’s basketball game between the University of Kentucky and WVU as part of the Big12/SEC Challenge. Of the 15 games WVU has played against Kentucky, they have lost ten and won five. (2) The first event held at WVU Coliseum was not a basketball game – rather it was a Grand Funk Railroad concert! (3) When opened in 1970, WVU Coliseum was a one-of-a-kind structure with a roof held up by concrete ribs connected to an external ring so that there is an unobstructed view of the court.

The 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 for your next geospatial project.

A variety of Pléiades 1 products are available from both a growing 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 this satellite constellation.

The SPOT Medium-Resolution Satellite Constellation

The SPOT medium-resolution constellation consist of seven satellites launched from 1986 to 2014 with the most recent additions, SPOT 6 and SPOT 7, launching in 2012 and 2014 respectively. SPOT 6 and SPOT 7 are twin satellites offering 1.5-m panchromatic and 6-m 4-band multispectral data with a massive footprint at 60-kilometers (km) wide. For projects requiring recent archive coverage or rapid new collections of medium-resolution data, SPOT 6/7 should be one of your top imagery sources!

More sample images and technical information about Pléiades 1A and 1B can be found on our website here; while the same can be found here for the SPOT constellation and specifically about SPOT 6/7.

The Apollo Mapping sales team can answer any questions you might have about Pléiades 1 and/or any of the SPOT satellites. We can be reached at (303) 993-3863 or sales@apollomapping.com.