In June, we looked at the sweeping coastal landscape of the Nāpali Coast State Wilderness Park in Kauai, Hawaii. This month for the Pléiades 1 – Pléiades Neo Point of Interest (POI), we’re heading to Myanmar to learn about the incredible city of Old Bagan and its Bagan Archaeological Museum.

These two images feature the Bagan Archaeological Museum, nestled against the banks of the Irrawaddy River. The images showcase the octagonal shape of the structure. Image one is a 50-cm photo was captured by Pléiades 1B on February 24, 2022. The second is a 30-cm image captured by Pléiades Neo 3 on August 22, 2021.  These images have custom processing and color balancing applied by Apollo Mapping. PLEIADES © CNES 2022, Distribution Airbus DS.

About the Point of Interest: Old Bagan is a sacred, ancient city in the Mandalay Region of Myanmar. Myanmar is the largest country in mainland Southeast Asia and is also known as Burma. The city is located in the plains on the eastern banks of the Irrawaddy River. During Bagan’s prime between the 11th and 13th Centuries, more than 13,000 Buddhist temples, monasteries, pagodas, and shrines were built on the vast plains. Today, more than seven centuries later, around 2,300 of these structures still stand. The city is a UNESCO World Heritage site, as the structures contain extensive archeological evidence, murals and knowledge about Buddhist spiritual practices. Bagan is also home to the Bagan Archaeological Museum, and is the subject of our POI images this month. The Old Archaeological Museum was established in 1904, and a newer iteration was opened in 1997. The museum structure is three stories tall and was built on an octagonal base.

Fun Factoids: (1) In Pali, a holy language in India, Bagan is known as “Arimardanna Pura“, which means “The City that Tramples on Enemies”. (2) Tourists can visit the temples of Bagan and many of the exteriors of the temples can be explored. The structures are most striking when viewed at dawn or dusk, when the sun gilds the exteriors of the architecture. (3) Bagan is located in an earthquake zone, and often suffers damage from the tremors. In August 2016, around 400 temples were destroyed in one such event. (4) The Dhammayangyi Temple is the largest of all the Bagan temples. It was constructed by King Narathu, who ascended to the throne by assassinating both his father and elder brother. Presumably the temple was built as atonement for his sins. (5) During the 13th Century, Bagan was invaded by Kublai Kahn and the Mogul Empire. Although previously a bustling center for alchemy, medicine, and religious studies, the city never recovered after the invasion. (6) The Bagan Archaeological Museum contains the Yaza Kuma stone, which is a stone pillar with four faces, each of which are inscribed in a different language. The stone is set in the middle of the museum’s octagonal structure, and is a very important artifact of Bagan history. (7) From the roof of the Bagan Archaeological Museum, visitors can enjoy a panoramic view of the entire “pagoda land” of Bagan, seeing the imposing structures soaring in the sky.

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.