Comments on: Comments on 14572

Post number 14572

pedantic — Thu, 07 Feb 2002 13:07:48 -0800

The Blue Marble. Adjust your gamma settings kids. The Earth with true-color imagery at 1-kilometer resolution.

By: UnReality

UnReality — Thu, 07 Feb 2002 13:15:44 -0800

Ooh...purty...

By: kirkaracha

kirkaracha — Thu, 07 Feb 2002 13:25:03 -0800

Hey, I can see my house from here!

By: tdismukes

tdismukes — Thu, 07 Feb 2002 13:55:21 -0800

Wow! I wish I had a monitor big enough to view the whole image at once.

By: Doug

Doug — Thu, 07 Feb 2002 13:55:35 -0800

Jesus, kirkaracha, put some pants on.

By: evanizer

evanizer — Thu, 07 Feb 2002 14:06:05 -0800

Beautiful images. Thanks for the link.

By: Down10

Down10 — Thu, 07 Feb 2002 14:09:08 -0800

Great link. Thanks!

By: kliuless

kliuless — Thu, 07 Feb 2002 14:16:18 -0800

i don't get why there's like a lens flare off of baja. hi!

By: pardonyou?

pardonyou? — Thu, 07 Feb 2002 14:46:28 -0800

kliuless, I think that's the reflection of the sun off the ocean. But I could be wrong.

By: kirkaracha

kirkaracha — Thu, 07 Feb 2002 14:51:24 -0800

Jesus, kirkaracha, put some pants on. Whoops, my bad.

By: tomplus2

tomplus2 — Thu, 07 Feb 2002 14:53:16 -0800

Western Hemisphere 21,600 by 21,600 pixels (1km) (240 MB TIFF) ! Poor ol' modem users, they don't know what they're missin'.

By: acridrabbit

acridrabbit — Thu, 07 Feb 2002 15:08:59 -0800

This is my favorite image: city lights at night. Interesting how the Sahara reads the same color as Greenland's glaciers. Also vividly shows the megalopolis of Boston-NYC-DC.

By: kliuless

kliuless — Thu, 07 Feb 2002 15:19:01 -0800

pardonyou? i was thinking that, but it seems like the angle's off, like there's none in the eastern hemisphere. the moon? i just realized in this font a lower case 'I' looks like an upside down exclamation point! ihola! :)

By: Ufez Jones

Ufez Jones — Thu, 07 Feb 2002 15:21:05 -0800

It's always so pretty when you can't see the people....*sigh*

By: dong_resin

dong_resin — Thu, 07 Feb 2002 15:28:02 -0800

I'm still waiting for it load up, but it sounds like it'll be great.

By: jackiemcghee

jackiemcghee — Thu, 07 Feb 2002 15:30:56 -0800

Completely breathtaking. Thanks for the link

By: jackiemcghee

jackiemcghee — Thu, 07 Feb 2002 15:36:29 -0800

I just noticed in this pic that you can see the line from Glasgow to Edinburgh as a constant track of light. I understand that probably means more to me than most of you.

By: davidmsc

davidmsc — Thu, 07 Feb 2002 15:45:52 -0800

I understand, jackiemcghee -- it's cool (don't know why) to trace Interstate 35 (US highway) from San Antonio through Austin through Dallas through Oklahoma City... Very, very cool pix.

By: fold_and_mutilate

fold_and_mutilate — Thu, 07 Feb 2002 15:56:23 -0800

Joy. Home. Fragile refuge in night. Odd how you can't make out those nasty national boundaries. Maybe somehow they don't really exist?

By: pedantic

pedantic — Thu, 07 Feb 2002 16:24:02 -0800

Odd how you can't make out those nasty national boundaries. Maybe somehow they don't really exist? They don't. It is purely a figment of our imagination. Funny how our ficticious lines on a map can create so many problems.

By: Ptrin

Ptrin — Thu, 07 Feb 2002 16:26:36 -0800

Ah, but they do, FAM. Take a look at the shimmering web of India, giving way to the sparsely speckled Pakistan, and finally the entirely barren Afghanistan. Progress at work :/

By: iain

iain — Thu, 07 Feb 2002 16:32:21 -0800

Hmm, really big maps for xplanet! The Nile is my favourite feature of the night map.

By: hincandenza

hincandenza — Thu, 07 Feb 2002 16:54:15 -0800

Feh- typical divisive NASA maps, with the "two hemisphere" view that only reinforces the East/West geopolitical divide. If they were really cool, they would have made this as a Dymaxion map...

By: AstroGuy

AstroGuy — Thu, 07 Feb 2002 17:40:01 -0800

This is my favorite image: city lights at night. That's my least favorite image. It looks pretty from space but it's pretty ugly from down here.

By: MUD

MUD — Thu, 07 Feb 2002 18:02:58 -0800

Cheers for the Dymaxion map link, hincandenza. I'd never seen that before and it was a nice diversion while I continue to wait for that 240MB beast to download.

By: Potsy

Potsy — Thu, 07 Feb 2002 18:08:57 -0800

I have a poster on my wall that I bought in 1990 titled "The Earth - From Space". It looks just like those "Land Surface, Ocean Color, and Sea Ice" images. It was made by NASA using the same sort of satellite imagery. Those specular highlights in the globe images are annoying. But, they give you access to the raw data, so you can make your own. That's pretty remarkable. High quality satellite mages like this used to cost a lot of money. Also, this is the first time that I've been able to find video clips online in anything greater than 640x480 resolution. Full HDTV rez, wow!

By: dhartung

dhartung — Thu, 07 Feb 2002 19:29:37 -0800

hincandenza, there's an East/West political divide, anymore? Read the papers once in a while, whydoncha. 1989-1991, if they're still in the closet. Anyway, even better than the aged Dymaxion is the Peters Projection, which is "area accurate" -- although the distortions in this map are in other ways even greater than old Mercator, and thus unfamiliar. (That's another smart About.com article, by the way. They only get better.) All about map projections -- another good one is Robinson -- and here's a professional cartographer's view of doing maps based on seeing earth from space.

By: pedantic

pedantic — Thu, 07 Feb 2002 19:40:54 -0800

Not necessarily accurate, but a different perspective to say the least. Other non-traditional perspectives are also available.

By: canoeguide

canoeguide — Fri, 08 Feb 2002 01:03:44 -0800

[this is good]

By: dong_resin

dong_resin — Fri, 08 Feb 2002 08:10:41 -0800

Hey, it just finished loading up. Wow. Pretty.