Comments on: Google Maps and Earth Lights

Google Maps and Earth Lights

philomathoholic — Thu, 30 Aug 2007 21:20:06 -0800

We've seen that one picture of earth at night. And we all know what Google Earth is. But someone has put the two together. Be sure to check out the map overlays, including the dusk map.

By: philomathoholic

philomathoholic — Thu, 30 Aug 2007 21:21:11 -0800

The blog entry is from Feb 06, how was this missed?

By: philomathoholic

philomathoholic — Thu, 30 Aug 2007 21:23:09 -0800

*Waits to be told that it wasn't missed.* Yes I searched.

By: Burhanistan

Burhanistan — Thu, 30 Aug 2007 21:24:14 -0800

Well, it's not that exciting.

By: blahblahblah

blahblahblah — Thu, 30 Aug 2007 21:25:35 -0800

I talked about Blue Marble and other NASA related add-ons to Google Earth in my old post.

By: conch soup

conch soup — Thu, 30 Aug 2007 21:34:10 -0800

Mars looks like I ate mushrooms.

By: randomstriker

randomstriker — Thu, 30 Aug 2007 21:36:17 -0800

Unfortunately the overlays are slightly out of alignment with the image.

By: Liosliath

Liosliath — Thu, 30 Aug 2007 21:37:59 -0800

I agree with randomstriker - I was just looking at Morocco, and all the cities are marked a bit North of where they actually are.

By: anthill

anthill — Thu, 30 Aug 2007 21:39:15 -0800

Man, the scandinavians totally deserve the North Pole, look how few Canadians live as far north as they do. I'd trust the Swedes with it. Then again, it could just be that Northern Canadians don't need street lamps.

By: Burhanistan

Burhanistan — Thu, 30 Aug 2007 21:40:41 -0800

Here's a mashup of Google Maps and earthquakes.

By: idiotfactory

idiotfactory — Thu, 30 Aug 2007 21:53:17 -0800

What is that bright dot in the middle of the Atlantic Ocean, between South America and Africa? I see no island there. Perhaps a bunch of freighter ships are having a party?

By: jonson

jonson — Thu, 30 Aug 2007 21:54:59 -0800

This is... okay?

By: Burhanistan

Burhanistan — Thu, 30 Aug 2007 21:57:46 -0800

idiotfactory: Probably Saint Helena

By: homunculus

homunculus — Thu, 30 Aug 2007 22:35:25 -0800

Mars looks like I ate mushrooms. Space mushrooms?

By: gubo

gubo — Thu, 30 Aug 2007 22:46:52 -0800

When I first read this I thought maybe someone reprojected this photo and made a Google Earth overlay out of it. Which would put me in geek heaven.

By: ikalliom

ikalliom — Thu, 30 Aug 2007 22:50:34 -0800

"The underlying 128 megapixel night imagery from NASA uses a map projection different from Google Maps'. The two are aligned near the NYC-Madrid-Tokyo axis only." North Europe is at least 500 kilometers off, Australia even more.

By: davejay

davejay — Thu, 30 Aug 2007 22:56:40 -0800

Okay, so what's the big bright spot in the southernmost portion of Africa, where Maps doesn't show any city callouts? Yes, American, geographically-challenged, help a guy out

By: ikalliom

ikalliom — Thu, 30 Aug 2007 23:05:16 -0800

By: amyms

amyms — Thu, 30 Aug 2007 23:19:09 -0800

idiotfactory said: What is that bright dot in the middle of the Atlantic Ocean, between South America and Africa? You discovered Atlantis!

By: dirigibleman

dirigibleman — Thu, 30 Aug 2007 23:31:40 -0800

What is that bright dot in the middle of the Atlantic Ocean Rave.

By: bunnytricks

bunnytricks — Thu, 30 Aug 2007 23:32:37 -0800

It's interesting if predictable that the interstates of the US are more apparent on the night image more than any political border. There's probably something mildly profound to be extrapolated from that but my neurons are telling me to stop trying to be smart for the internet and just fucking go to bed.

By: blacklite

blacklite — Fri, 31 Aug 2007 00:21:24 -0800

davejay, it's Johannesburg, they just fucked up the projection. "The underlying 128 megapixel night imagery from NASA uses a map projection different from Google Maps'. The two are aligned near the NYC-Madrid-Tokyo axis only." I fail to understand why they didn't just reproject it. GRASS GIS would have done it pretty straightforwardly, and if you're already taking the time to do this, why not do it right? It would have made the "dusk" map look a lot less dumb. Oh well, I guess it's nice.

By: blacklite

blacklite — Fri, 31 Aug 2007 00:22:37 -0800

(Oh, unless you mean the point way way down there, which is Cape Town.)

By: felix betachat

felix betachat — Fri, 31 Aug 2007 00:33:51 -0800

My God! It's full of meh!

By: blacklite

blacklite — Fri, 31 Aug 2007 00:36:59 -0800

bright dot in the middle of the Atlantic Ocean It's Ascension Island, I think. USAF and RAF bases, various communications stations, etc., and while it was only officially used for rocket launches in 1963-74, I wouldn't be surprised if there's some activity there still, away from prying eyes. The European Space Agency has a tracking center there.

By: rhymer

rhymer — Fri, 31 Aug 2007 01:45:07 -0800

According to these maps, by day I live in London, but at dusk, I live in Brighton. Cool.

By: sebas

sebas — Fri, 31 Aug 2007 02:44:07 -0800

Yeah, seems like brighton sure has a lot of lights in the evening.

By: StickyCarpet

StickyCarpet — Fri, 31 Aug 2007 05:55:40 -0800

Considering that a lot of these lights are not cities, but natural gas burn-off from oil wells, I've always wondered about that sharp drop off between India and China. Maybe that's a good investment, oil wells in south west China?

By: Mintyblonde

Mintyblonde — Fri, 31 Aug 2007 06:15:05 -0800

What is that bright dot in the middle of the Atlantic Ocean? R'lyeh?

By: teraflop

teraflop — Fri, 31 Aug 2007 06:31:36 -0800

While I'm complaining, does anyone else find it annoying that Google Maps uses the Mercator projection, which is completely ridiculous even within Europe (Spain is so small it looks like it could be a province of Sweden) and more or less the worst possible choice for a world map? (if you're not a navigator) No projection can be both equal-area and conformal. If they used a non-conformal projection, shapes and directions would be distorted when you zoomed in. And given that Google Maps is primarily used for things like driving directions, the aesthetic appearance of the full world map was probably not a very high priority.

By: intermod

intermod — Fri, 31 Aug 2007 06:37:03 -0800

That nighttime image has been my desktop background image for several years. Thanks philomathoholic for the link. I used it to confirm that during my trip to West Virginia next year, the night sky should be very dark indeed. Add tags for "map" and "googlemaps"? This is technically Google Maps, not Google Earth. Two different things.

By: jwells

jwells — Fri, 31 Aug 2007 07:54:52 -0800

NASA's WorldWind program also has as plugin for this, which I detailed this morning on the green and am now feeling like I wasted that time on. Maybe it's more accurate though.

By: dammitjim

dammitjim — Fri, 31 Aug 2007 08:33:08 -0800

I'm disappointed it doesn't go down futher. I wanted to see my house with the lights on.

By: C.Batt

C.Batt — Fri, 31 Aug 2007 09:08:01 -0800

Japan just scares the ever living shit out of me. The lights reveal just how densely populated it is. The west cost of Honshu blows my mind. Enormous solid blobs of light with little distance in between. Honshu looks like a well marbled steak. (Perhaps Kobe beef? hehe)