Last month we featured our first racetrack which was in the United Kingdom, and in August we pivot back to our more “typical” building type with a look at Autzen Stadium in Eugene, Oregon for this Pléiades 1 Stadium of the Month.

Name & Its Origin: Autzen Stadium is the home of the University of Oregon Ducks’ football team. It is named after Thomas John Autzen who was a well-known Portland philanthropist and innovator of plywood construction. Oh and it does not hurt that his Autzen Foundation made a $250,000 donation to support the construction of the stadium that would become his namesake.

Location: Autzen Stadium is located in Eugene, Oregon on a 90-acre lot some quarter mile north of the University of Oregon campus, across the Willamette River. The stadium is located some 420 feet above sea level and 50 miles east of the Pacific Ocean.

Stadium Capacity/Size, Architect & Build Date: From 1919 to 1967, the Ducks played at the 15,000 seat Hayward Field. In 1959, the university realized it was time to move to a larger facility to handle the growing crowds so they purchased a 560-acre site for the newly planned stadium. Constructed in just 9 months by the firm SOM, the $2.5-million 41,000 seat Autzen Stadium made its debut in 1967 and the rest is history so they say! In 1988, a press box and skyboxes were added; and then in 2002, the most significant renovations of the stadium were completed in a $90 million expansion that increased capacity to 54,000 among a multitude of other upgrades.

A 50-cm color image of Autzen Stadium in Eugene, Oregon collected on May 18, 2016 by Pléiades 1B. To see this stadium in SPOT 6/7 1.5-meter resolution, check out this month’s feature on SPOTMaps. This image has custom processing and color balancing applied by Apollo Mapping. © CNES 2016, Distribution Airbus Defense and Space / Spot Image S.A., France, all rights reserved.

Type of Field Surface: In 2002, the natural grass surface of Autzen Stadium was replaced with artificial FieldTurf. Now here is where I tell you why we wrote this piece as one of our recent Airbnb guests, Edgar, worked for Brock International (a great name, right?!) and they installed one of their innovative Performance Base Systems at Autzen, which makes artificial turf safer to play on as well as easier to install and maintain.

Key Sports Teams: The only team that calls Autzen Stadium home is the extremely popular Oregon Ducks who play in the Football Bowl Series division of NCAA college football.

Most Popular Yearly Event: Any time the Oregon Ducks play in Autzen Stadium it is quite the scene, with an average attendance of 57,631 fans during their 7 home games in 2015 – that is more than 3,500 fans over the stadium’s stated capacity! During July 24^th, Autzen Stadium will host its first international soccer match featuring FC Inter Milan versus Paris Saint-Germain FC as part of the International Champions Cup.

Fun Factoids: (1) Have you ever noticed how many uniforms the Oregon Ducks football team has? Apparently they have more than 1,200 combinations of helmets, pants, jerseys, socks and shoes as one of their alumni, Phil Knight, is the co-founder of Nike and a big supporter of the football team! (2) The first game at Autzen Stadium was a loss to the University of Colorado Golden Buffaloes who were at that time part of the Big Eight while the Ducks were in the Pacific 8. Was this first game an omen of what was to come in the recent college conferences shakeup? Probably not, haha! (3) Autzen Stadium is known as one of the loudest in college football. For instance, on October 27, 2007, some 59,277 rowdy fans produced 127.2 decibels of sound. The current record for the loudest roar at a sports venue is held by Arrowhead Stadium at 142.2 decibels on September 29, 2014.

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.

Working with Pléiades 1 since the launch of the first twin satellite, P1A, we have noticed that:

• Airbus Defense and Space is able to deliver on their tasking feasibilities.

The Apollo Mapping sales team can answer any questions you might have about the high resolution satellite constellation, Pléiades 1. We can be reached anytime at (303) 993-3863 or sales@apollomapping.com.

More sample images and technical information about Pléiades 1A and 1B can be found on our website here.