Whole Earth images, Does any satellite provide regularly updated ones? Options

[elakdawalla]

There are tons of Earth observing satellites producing gorgeous detailed images, but I'm trying to figure out if any of them is capable of producing full-globe images of Earth on some regularly updated basis. Does anyone here know of such a beast? Are there weather monitoring satellites that do this?

--Emily

[djellison]

Well - there's Meteosat, the European geostationary effort - but that's just one side of said globe. The latest version of Meteosat is the second generation vehicle ( MSG ) which is producing good imagery at high res, every 6 hours. Of course that means basically one full colour image over 0 degrees per day ( the 0600 and 1800 images are, of course, half dark )

Proper website is www.eumetsat.de ( might have seen signposts for Eumetsat on the way into Darmstadt on the Bus - just opposite ESOC )

I'd recommend here - http://www.sat.dundee.ac.uk - (free reg required for good stuff) for regular full res MSG imagery as well as from other, not quite so high-res or full colour etc sats. (i.e. GOESE, GOESW, IODC, MTSAT). TECHNICALLY...one could take these multiple geostationary views, and fudge some sort of global view from them.

Also - Aqua and Terra each with my favorite polar orbiting instrument MODIS, do technically cover the entire glove at about 500m/pixel, in colour, at about 1200 and 1400 LOCAL time every day - but I don't believe they produce a daily global product, just the swathes in near real time and a lot of near realtime subset that are reprojected - http://rapidfire.sci.gsfc.nasa.gov/

I guess it depends on what you mean by global.

Doug

Attached thumbnail(s)

 

[Juramike]

This will get you the "other" side of the globe. (click on the type of view and you'll get the full disk)
http://www.goes.noaa.gov/goesfull.html


And this will get you a full globe snapshot. (The rotating globe movie is waaaaaay cool-o!)
http://www.ssec.wisc.edu/data/composites.html

-Mike

[stevesliva]

You'd have to be pretty far out there to fit the whole globe in one frame, no?

The NOAA whole-earth water vapor movies are fantastic... neat eddies.

[Tom Womack]

I think you could get full-globe images by combining pictures from multiple weather satellites, but obviously you get no more than a hemisphere from anything in GEO. Earth is (if I've done my sums right) 20 degrees across from GEO, so you need some sort of scanning platform to take your detector across Earth.

Ah, this is already done: http://www.ghcc.msfc.nasa.gov/GOES/globalwv.html has global images composed from GOES-EAST (over Peru), GOES-WEST (over the Pacific), and the two Meteosats over the Bight of Benin and Sri Lanka. I suspect there's a Japanese satellite filling the gap east of India.

These don't show the poles very well for geometric reasons, and are monochrome (OK, they're trichrome, but those are 10.8u infra-red, 2u infra-red and visible).

The polar Earth-observing satellites (say http://rapidfire.sci.gsfc.nasa.gov/) get any point on Earth every few days, but clouds move fast enough that the pictures will look pretty ugly and not line up.

[tedstryk]

Modis covers the entire earth every one to two days, depending on how the Aqua and Terra ground tracks fall. This page has some good stuff http://visibleearth.nasa.gov/view_rec.php?id=2429

Seawifs also gets nearly full coverage on a daily basis.

[djellison]

Thought I would see just how hard it is to merge all the GEO MET IR imagery into one strip.....and the answer...with photoshop..is 'suprisingly hard'

Attached thumbnail(s)

 

[tedstryk]

On second thought, Emily, you are breaking the law which states that the only global image of the earth is this one:

[elakdawalla]

I'm asking this question on behalf of Lou, and I think what he really means by "global" is "looks like a globe" -- but then he probably wants to see the whole planet too. I'll have to find out what he really wants.

--Emily

[djellison]

Again...TEEEeeechnnically - one could take one of those global composites, reproject it as a texture in realtime and render out a globe-like sphere. But that's way beyond my talents (one offs, yeah, automated every few hours...pah)

Alternatively, who's got a few hundred million to launch Triana?

Doug

[tedstryk]

I want to make a comment here, but I can't without being political, so I won't. But the link I gave in the post before my last one definitely has globe-like images.

[helvick]

... the only global image of the earth is this one:

Hey - I can see my old house in that.

[ngunn]

Thought I would see just how hard it is to merge all the GEO MET IR imagery into one strip

That is just amazing, Doug. What a thing to think of doing!

[Pando]

You'd have to be pretty far out there to fit the whole globe in one frame, no?

That reminds me, here's another one...

[climber]

This is one of the more inspiring Earth image to me.
You can see city's lights on the dark side while others are still seeing the sun :

[remcook]

a shame it's not a real image. Would be nice to see the bottom of the oceans and no clouds at all in the entire world!

[Juramike]

I wonder if one could see the shadow resulting from the March 19th eclipse in the visible image on the Meteosat or GOES web pages?

Pity they aren't "live" webcams!

[remcook]

ISS sure had a good look: e.g.
http://www.nasa.gov/vision/universe/solars...rthday2006.html

edit - I'm sure I've seen an animation of the moon's shadow moving across the earth, but can't find it right now.

pretty:
http://sunearthday.nasa.gov/2006/multimedia/gal_011.php

[Juramike]

Very cool! I hadn't seen that before. Thanks, remcook!

-Mike

[Hari]

I create global cloud mosaics for the xplanet project from satellite imagery downloaded from the University of Dundee. They are updated every three hours.

See here for details.

[neave]

EUMESAT is a geo-stationary satellite with full disc imagery in lots of spectra: http://www.eumetsat.int/Home/Main/Image_Ga...mages/index.htm

but can also be found via the link djellison mentioned I think.

There are plenty of full disc images in the Apollo Archive http://www.apolloarchive.com/apollo_gallery.html but they're not exactly modern

[scalbers]

For clouds this is one of the things I'm working on at NOAA in connection with the Science On a Sphere project. We do have a 30-min global IR animation (interpolated to 15-min) in real-time using a mosaic from the Aviation Weather Center that I am augmenting with Japan's MTSAT data. The actual time resolution does vary over the globe depending on which satellite(s) are covering the area.

My current goal within this effort is to produce an upgraded 15-min global animation by more directly using the various geosynchronous (and polar orbiting) satellites. This will work best with the Meteosat Second Generation data that I believe would have two satellites with the full 15-min resolution over their respective areas of coverage. Other satellites would be used with appropriate temporal interpolation.

The IR mosaics exist in up to 2048x4096 resolution, though for display we sometimes reduce this by half when we wrap the animation around the sphere.

[edstrick]

The fundamental problem is that there are no spacecraft that can usefully image the "whole" earth beyond geostationary orbit. From 22 thousand miles out, they see to a horizon of something like 82 north and south (and the same east and west of the subspacecraft point) It's easy to imagine the view as a hemisphere, but a matched view to something from at or beyond the moon would show the difference.

Somebody should be able to match up geostationary global data to Messenger or the failed Japanese Mars orbiter or some such mission to get a quasi simultaneous match and maybe fake it using global mosaic data to show the geostationary view you'd have directly below the deep space mission.

[DDAVIS]

I used to make Earth textures from weather sats using images gathered during equinoxes when the lighting would cover the most of the planet. The availability of the high res European and Asian satellite coverage dried up on the GOES page I used to frequent and I gave up. I did manage to make one nice instantaneous Earth image which I colorised (with night lights added), and a days noon lighting global composite. A good 4K texture was just possible from these sources. Below can be seen a sample rendering from this work. I used 'Morph', a nice Mac package from years ago, to warp the images to fit a simple cylindrical projection, adding the poles from other sources.
I later did the same thing to MGS global swaths to make my own Mars albedo maps.

Don

[scalbers]

Greetings,

I can show a somewhat dated example of the animation I'm working on at this URL. The current animation has an improved blending and colorizing scheme.

http://sos.noaa.gov/datasets/Atmosphere/grayscaleIR.html

Edstrick - I think the geostationary satellites see up to about 72 degrees latitude. There are an increasing number of polar orbiting satellites that would image the poles with a reasonable frequency if you take them all together.

[helvick]

Steve that is stunning.

Will the newer version be made public?

[DDAVIS]

In a recent update to my Earth texture I added gas flares to the night lights, but data on where the flaring takes place seems elusive. National Geographic had some flare locations shown in their recent world map so I used a lot of those, and whatever Middle East, Nigeria, and Canada flare images I could find. Does anyone know of a world map showing current gas flaring?

Don

[scalbers]

Helvick - glad the animation played OK for you. It is a good question about whether this can be made public. You can see it at the dozen or so museums and such that have the SOS exhibit installed. In terms of having it online in real-time this is a bit different category compared with the single frame planetary maps I work on. There are various proprietary, bandwidth, or simply inertia and political issues that might stand in the way here unfortunately. One example is that EUMETSAT charges a significant amount for their high-resolution data. You're welcome to contact the "powers that be" to add your voice to this question. I suppose that the 5MB compressed animation that is on the SOS website could technically be updated in real-time.

By the way, the upper animation on the page looks to be the current colorization I'm using and the lower one is the older one we're phasing out. Although this is a little frustrating I am hoping to share with everyone what could be possible.

[edstrick]

"...I think the geostationary satellites see up to about 72 degrees latitude...." Yes, that sounds right.

My favorite full-disc (or nearly) images of Earth are from Apollo 4, where an automated film camera filled a film magazine with images looking out a window at a fattish crescent Earth. Some are partially cut off by camera field of view or the window-frame. It should be quite possible to work those up into a pretty spectacular high-resolution (scanned film) movie like sequence showing a little Earth rotation/spacecraft-motion/illumination shift during the sequence. I have no idea long the sequence took but I'm sure (I'm sure I hope...) the data is online.

My other fav sequence is 2 image sequences from Surveyor 7 on the rim of Tycho. The Earth was low enough in the sky to be visible in the narrow angle camera view. They took 1 image sequence per day, probably through all polarizing filter positions (no color filters on the later Surveyors) showing Earth over a range of phase angles around 180 deg phase (1 day skipped?)

They also took a series of images every ?hour? on one day near the end of the mission showing a decent Earth rotation sequence of a gibbous Earth. A bit of image mapping onto a sphere to make a global map and remapping to the spacecraft view of the Earth could make a decent movie.

[ElGrifon]

WOW those are just incredable images of the Earth, expecially the first one from djellison. Keep uo the great work. This is a great forum.

[djellison]

Just to fill up this thread appropriately - from the newly released Hayabusa data

Attached thumbnail(s)

 

[belleraphon1]

WOW..

These whole Earth images from departing and returning space craft are particulary evocative to me. I remember Apollo 8 transmissions in 1968. Could actually see the Earth receding.

Hayabusa has had quite a journey and I hope there will be a return image.

Craig

[elakdawalla]

I totally forgot to return to this thread after creating some pages on the topic. Thanks, everybody, for your suggestions. Here's the two pages I've put together so far:

Images of Earth from Geostationary Satellites
Images of Earth from Planetary Spacecraft

I still need to add the Hayabusa images, and I know Doug's got a few more pieces of eye candy in production...

--Emily

[lyford]

Nice collection, Emily.

I keep forgetting there's a whole sidebar on the left of the Planetary Society Website to explore.... though I can't even keep up with your blog updates!

[scalbers]

Yes - excellent website Emily. Nice summary of the various geostationary satellites - helps me keep track of them as I contemplate further work on high frequency global animations.

I also like the images with the Earth and moon in the same frame, we live on such a colorful and vibrant planet.

[djellison]

The page has been updated with my Galileo efforts

That Earth 1 flyby I've only ever seen as a tiny .mov or .mpg - so I had a hack at it - every 4th(ish) frame - at full res. Quite pleased with the results.

While doing that, I also found an Earth-Moon conjunction observation from the Earth 2 flyby that is very Cassini-esque

The Earth 2 flyby data is, on the whole, ruined by dropouts for some reason - truely tragic as it would have been spectacular !!

[Phil Stooke]

Don't forget Lunar Orbiter, Surveyor and the Zonds. There are several Earth images to be found among those datasets.

Phil

[ljk4-1]

The Japanese Mars probe Nozomi also took images of Earth and Luna,
which you can see here:

http://www.stp.isas.jaxa.jp/nozomi/MIC/MIC_e.html

[Guest_AlexBlackwell_*]

NEAR Shoemaker during the 1998 Earth swingby

[djellison]

I plan to do to NEAR what I've done to the Galileo E1 flyby - but I think there might be something a bit broken with NEAR MSI FITS and img2png - and I'm not even going to attempt it if I have to load each frame individually

As with the Galileo flybys, I've only really seen them put together as a movie at low res. The reason I did the Galileo one was to see it at the full res - and I think the effort was worth it.

Doug

[tedstryk]

Great Galileo work, Doug.

By the way, there are several Zond images. The USGS site has quite a few from Zond-8. Zond 7 took a color earthrise sequence. Quite a few of the frames are in my collection and all over the internet, but the color quality is poor (presumably due to poor copying, based on small samples of better copies I have seen. Here is a sequence, showing what I have been able to cobble together from multiple frames, croping out areas I couldn't generate for all images. Click on this link for a larger version.




http://www.strykfoto.org/zondrise.jpg

[ugordan]

Wow, awesome, Ted!

[ugordan]

I see Doug's Galileo Earth rotation made APOD today, congrats!

I was browsing through the rotation sequence raws myself and something struck me as interesting. There's a few frames that exhibit a bright glint-like speck somewhere above Argentina. It's visible in several different filter frames and it's not camera-related as it's fixed to Earth in subsequent frames though the glint appears to move slightly along the groundtrack. It's much brighter than the rest of the cloud structure visible so I was wondering if anyone has any theories?

It can be seen as a green-red charge bleed in this composite:

The brightness difference between the speck and the rest of the clouds is much lower here due to the processing than it is in the original frames.

[djellison]

It's a specular reflection off a lake in Uraguay or Argentina I think - if you run through all the images you can see it very very clearly.(when I say all, I mean every image, i.e. r, ir, g, ir, v..etc etc)

Just guessing - but my initial thoughts were that rough oceans with large amplitude waves dont produce a pin sharp specular reflection from the sun. A small lake - which could be almost totally flat - would produce a sharp specular highlight.

APOD - Sweet - I had no idea

Doug

[ugordan]

I thought about a lake specular, the specular point is in about the right location, but the area seemed to be clouded over to actually see a lake. If it's actually a lake, it's great to see how much brighter speculars on a flat surface are than oceanic specular "point". As the specular point is tighter when the surface is less rough it goes to show what a cool coincidence this turned out to be.

Imagine seeing something of the sort on Titan...

[tedstryk]

Emily, you are welcome to add this to the planetary society page, but remember the version I linked to is larger.

[djellison]

It's not packed solid cloud though - it's bitty, hazy perhaps -not full on blanket covering. Certainly enough to let the reflection through

Doug

[elakdawalla]

Emily, you are welcome to add this to the planetary society page, but remember the version I linked to is larger.

Thanks, Ted! I've been out of town for a few days, so a bit out of the loop, but I'll be back home tonight and will DEFINITELY add your cool Zond images to the site.

And congrats on APOD, Doug!

--Emily

[Phil Stooke]

Just to clarify one point, Ted's Earthrise is actually an Earthset. So is the famous Lunar Orbiter 1 view of Earth over the lunar horizon. Only Apollo (among those early missions) saw the Earth rise.

Phil

[tedstryk]

Doug: Congratulations!

Phil: I had no idea. The images come from a variety of sources, and I ordered them without even considering that it might be an earthset!

[tedstryk]

Here we are then...



Full Resolution

[DDAVIS]

In images 2 and 4 of the Zond sequence the Lunar horizon part of the photos are identical with no perspective change as one would expect from an actual orbital sequence. Only three of the images are thus part of a valid sequence.
I would love to have a full res color version of the 'Earthset' Zond image TASS released in B&W, which I saw and photographed at the Hansen Planetarium when I worked there.

Don

[tedstryk]

It is actually image 2 that isn't a valid part of the sequence - I created it using image one and three in order to even up the time intervals.

[Ant103]

It's not a whole Earth picture but it's of topicality (dust on Mars... dust on Earth) :

http://www.studiolentigo.net/upload/Poussi...ill2007-18h.jpg

(taken yesterday à 6 A.M by MSG2)

[climber]

It's not a whole Earth picture but it's of topicality (dust on Mars... dust on Earth) :

il marche pas le lien

[CAP-Team]

this link works

[LivingNDixie]

This is one of my favorites, it makes a great wallpaper on your computer.

Attached thumbnail(s)

 

[djellison]

That's just renered from the Blue Marble data set. Nice - but not real

Doug

[MouseOnMars]

The Japanese GMS-5 satellite used to produce full disc images every half an hour. By the time I managed to construct a rather rough animation of full disc cloud movements their camera was failing (as you can see in the following animation).



(Click for larger)

mouseonmars

[scalbers]

Hi - there are a few images collected by NASA at this link:

http://eol.jsc.nasa.gov/scripts/sseop/Phot...l?set=EarthDisc

[ugordan]

Great resource, Steve! Images I hadn't seen before. I only browsed the few images from the Apollo set, but it looks like a gem.

Sadly, the highest resolution versions have too high a compression ratio set and the scans turn weirdly green. I tried to remove the green background.

Two nice Apollo 8 shots, reduced in size:

I'm a sucker for those thru-the-window shots or, in general, views which show objects of recognizable size with which a human can relate.

Apollo 10 Earthrise, always an awesome sight. So they say...

[MouseOnMars]

Hi - there are a few images collected by NASA at this link:

http://eol.jsc.nasa.gov/scripts/sseop/Phot...l?set=EarthDisc

Cripes. Thanks scalbers. I found that site ages ago. The highest resolution images of this type I've come across before. Complete with views of the Earth taken out of the Apollo mission ports that I did'nt know about. I then lost the address and no one seemed to know what site I was talking about . So you get some thanks from my friends .

MouseOnMars

[ljk4-1]

Twin Blue Marbles

http://earthobservatory.nasa.gov/Newsroom/...p3?img_id=17794

[Stu]

Those new Twin Blue Marble images are just spectacularly beautiful, thanks for the link.

Truly an oasis in the dark ocean of space...

[ustrax]

Those new Twin Blue Marble images are just spectacularly beautiful, thanks for the link.

Truly an oasis in the dark ocean of space...

Yes they are Stu!...Thank you all!
All the provided links are true treasures...don't know why, maybe because I had dinner at an indian restaurant nearby, I became all mystical looking at those images and thinking about all the solid ground I have covered with my own feet in this incredbly small and fragile parcel of the Universe...Man!...How priviliged are we?!...

[ugordan]

Here's a side-by-side comparison of 3 crescent Earth shots at a similar phase angle. They were all tweaked from what is officially available to make ocean color more similar to each other. From left to right: Kaguya, MESSENGER and Apollo 4. North is up only in Kaguya's image.

[chuckclark]

Here is another way to see -- and think about -- the whole globe: with a map, of course. Some of the above posts have been map-like.
This is a constant-scale natural boundary world map of Earth.
Its boundary is a portion, the Atlantic Ocean portion, of the mid-ocean ridge. You might, if you want, follow along with what I learn is called "the Wilson cycle": where the spreading apart of the Atlantic Ocean floor will eventually push closed the Pacific Ocean. That idea, I also hear, is a lot of simplistic, anthropomorphic bunkum. I don't mean to take sides in any argument here, just to point out that with a little ingenuity world maps may be fashioned to illustrate ideas global in scope.
Something meant to address climate change, to reveal large scale patterns in meteorology, a CSNB world map edged by continental divides, for example, would look entirely different.

I'm new around here, and have only recently looked through the "new" rules. It's hard to imagine how this string of posts relates to unmanned space flight. But given the drift of this conversation, I just wanted to add this to the discussion of whole earth views of ther globe.

Attached thumbnail(s)

 

[n1ckdrake]

This is one of my favorites.

[dilo]

Cool picture, n1ckdrake! Which source/mission? Apollo?

Herebelow an improved crop I made (in particular, color/contrast adjust and sharpening)... I think is a perfect wallpaper!

[Paolo]

Cool picture, n1ckdrake!

very cool indeed, and dilo and me we are almost right at the center of it!

[remcook]

oeee is that a Kelvin wave? Cool!

[n1ckdrake]

The photo of the Earth is from the Apollo 10 mission, taken at a distance of 100,000 nautical miles. Here is the link to the Apollo 10 Earth Photo

[n1ckdrake]

This image is from the Apollo 16 mission.



Link

[dvandorn]

The photo of the Earth is from the Apollo 10 mission, taken at a distance of 100,000 nautical miles.

I knew it had to be from one of three missions -- Apollos 10, 11 or 15 -- due to the amount of the North Pole illuminated by the Sun. Since we appeared to be further from solstice than July, my best guess was Apollo 10 (which, of course, flew in May).

Nice to see I was right!

-the other Doug

[dvandorn]

This image is from the Apollo 16 mission.

This view is almost identical to the view televised from Apollo 16 immediately after transposition and docking, which was by far the best image of global Earth ever transmitted via television from an Apollo spacecraft.

-the other Doug

[peter59]

This image is from the Mariner-10 spacecraft.


Image FDS0014553 (November 1973)

[ugordan]

Here's a montage of Earth and Moon from MESSENGER. I used both the blue and violet filters for Earth because they're fairly narrowband and the violet filter better captures the Rayleigh scattering effect of the atmosphere than the longer wavelength blue. The Moon is a narrow-angle image taken a couple of days earlier and colorized using much lower resolution wide-angle data.
Earth is presented in a gamma-correct version so the contrast is different than in the official release. Earth's color balance is based on recent digital imagery from the Shuttle/ISS missions. I'm always striving to improve Earth's color in my images, this is currently my best guess and I'm fairly pleased with how it turned out.

[Stu]

Oh my....

"Beautiful" doesn't even begin to do that justice.

Can't help wondering what it will be like for the astronauts of the future, to see that view through their spaceship window as they come home after a mission to Mars, or Europa, or to another star...

Just magical.

[djellison]

I wonder if, with the Dawn flyby - we might get a similar view of Mars. We have a recent similar shot of Mercury, and Venus - it'd be great to wrap up a nice inner-solar system family portrait

[ugordan]

Now that you mention it, the Mercury image and this one do have almost completely the same phase angles.
Speaking of Mars, I wonder how much longer it's going to be before any Rosetta data hits the PSA (*cough*Mars flyby*cough*)...

[rogelio]

Nice picture, ugordan.

Are those smoke plumes from Amazonian forest fires? (I'm referring to the wispy features to the south of the river, not the obvious clouds to the north).

If so, it's quite sobering that they could be seen from 10,000's of km away...

[charborob]

Very nice image, except the Moon is not in its correct orientation. We can see features invisible from Earth, namely Mare Orientale and part of the farside

[ugordan]

Very nice image, except the Moon is not in its correct orientation. We can see features invisible from Earth, namely Mare Orientale and part of the farside

I said it's a montage, not an exact scene visible from the spacecraft. The Earth-Moon system did not look like this at any single time during the flyby, the phase angle difference makes that pretty obvious. Think of it as "artistic license" - putting the moon "closer" to the source of illumination because it's at a higher phase angle. As to putting the Moon to the left of the planet (at that time it was waaay up and to the left of Earth), I dunno, this looked more aesthetic to me. I didn't want to put the Moon in an inset box either for that reason.

Rogelio, I can't tell if those are forest fires or not. The official image advisory doesn't mention them, but I've found a site concerned with forest fires which claims the 2005 year was particularly bad in terms of fires in the Amazon (something about reduced rainfall that season). It does look like smoke, but then again, it could be low haze due to air humidity in the region. It's widespread all the way to the Andes so I'm inclined to say that's indeed smoke. I can't find any GOES-East satellite archive going back to August 2005 to better see what that was.

[tedstryk]

Amazing!

[Ant103]

Good god
I've found the desktop wallpaper of the day .

Thanks .

[centsworth_II]

Very nice image, except the Moon is not in its correct orientation. We can see features invisible from Earth...

But the image is not seen from the Earth's perspective.

[remcook]

amazing work as usual!

[Juramike]

Thank y'all for this thread!

Using these resources I was able to snag an image taken today (February 8, 2008) of three tropical cyclones simultaneously churning in the South Indian Ocean.



(Starting to look like Jupiter down there, isn't it?)

This site was used to access this image: http://www.goes.noaa.gov/goesfull.html

-Mike

[Stu]

Here's a montage of Earth and Moon from MESSENGER. .... I'm always striving to improve Earth's color in my images, this is currently my best guess and I'm fairly pleased with how it turned out.

Me too! Thanks for giving me permission to use it, Gordan!

"No Place Like Home..."

[ugordan]

You're welcome, Stu!

[Juramike]

Combination of Water Vapor (primarily), Infrared, and Visible images from the GOES-East geostationary satellite. These images were downloaded from the Dundee Receiving Station website today (images for July 6, 20081500 UTC)



Aqua and blue tones indicates higher levels of water vapor, while maroon tones indicate drier air.
In the central Atlantic, Tropical Storm Bertha can be seen leaving a trail of clouds to the east as it pumps water vapor into the atmosphere.


-Mike

[ugordan]

Ooh... funky stuff!

[DDAVIS]

Thanks to Robert Beal of the John Hopkins Applied Physics Lab, I now have on my site a copy of the first color image of the Earth as a disk. It was made September 20, 1967 by the Department Of Defense Gravity Experiment satellite (DODGE). He worked on the mission, painting the spherical color target at the end of the boom and photographically assembling the color image. Beal sent me a file based on a print he made, which he had color balanced to resemble the ATS Earth image on my site. Upon my request he reconstructed the color scheme of the poorly imaged target from memory. I was told the colors used, similar in philosophy to Surveyor, were radiation resistant paints which happened to be of low saturation. The idea of a spherical color target is interesting, and strikes me as ingenious. If both target and background are sunlit the target can supply useful information at a wide range of lighting angles. Has this method been used in other camera carrying spacecraft?
In a separate version I have repainted the color target, fixing the motion blur in the boom in the blue channel, and tried to 'fine tune' the Autochrome like image into a kind of 'reconstruction' of how it might have appeared if all imaging steps worked ideally.

http://www.donaldedavis.com/2003NEW/NEWSTUFF/DDEARTH.html

Don

[Stu]

That's quite a coup you have there, well done. I had no idea images like that were being taken so early on. Thanks for sharing it with us here.

[Pertinax]

Rogelio, I can't tell if those are forest fires or not. The official image advisory doesn't mention them, but I've found a site concerned with forest fires which claims the 2005 year was particularly bad in terms of fires in the Amazon (something about reduced rainfall that season). It does look like smoke, but then again, it could be low haze due to air humidity in the region. It's widespread all the way to the Andes so I'm inclined to say that's indeed smoke. I can't find any GOES-East satellite archive going back to August 2005 to better see what that was.

A bit late but hopefully still helpful....

http://www.ncdc.noaa.gov/gibbs/image/GOE-12/VS/2005-08-02-15

[Juramike]

Animated loop of the Atlantic Basin of the Earth from August 10-20, 2008 in Amazing AquaVision (click to launch 1 Mb animated GIF):



Tropical Storm Fay (AKA "The Joker") can be seen pulsing her way into the Florida peninsula.

-Mike

(I gotta figure how to host the big version somewhere...)

[Guest_PhilCo126_*]

Nice picture, ugordan, Moon orientation a bit too close to Earth... otherwise no remarks

[hendric]

Juramike,
The best places for weather discussion I've found is Weather Underground, www.weatherunderground.com. Check out their blogs.

[Juramike]

Weather Underground is a great site. I'm a huge fan of the Tropical blog.

The water vapor images of the Earth make our own planet seem so...alien. The overall beltlike appearance in the Water Vapor images of moist zones and dry zones make Earth look much more like Venus (with Earth just having a few more nodes).

The things that really piqued my interest in the (tiny) loop above are the clear zones that seems to be forming around and beyond developing warm core tropical systems like Tropical Storm Fay and Invest 94. These dark, dryish surrounding zones seem to actually "push and clear" into the ITCZ. I've just spent a few hours prowling on the web trying to figure what makes these clear zones in the Water Vapor loop (without much luck). The smaller swirls at the edge of Saturn's South Polar Vortex (multispectral imaging in PIA08333) look kinda similar, as if the isolated eddies are "pushing and clearing" into surrounding belts. Are they formed by the same mechanism or totally different? Who knows?

It's fascinating how overall similar the structures are. Even the swirling loops around Antarctica look like Earth has it's own South Polar Vortex - just with a more fluid and changing boundary.

-Mike

[jamescanvin]

Images of storms are rather off topic for this thread, i've moved them to a new one:

Storms from Orbit