MetaFilter posts tagged with Satellite

Happy 40th anniversary, mankind.

sexyrobot — Thu, 02 Jul 2009 13:01:13 -0800

Moon Landing Tapes Found! All the videos you've seen of the first moon landing are crap. Remember, back in the day, video cameras and recorders were two different things. So it went like this: camera on moon sends footage to Australia, where it's recorded on tape (and then those tapes were lost), then downsized onto a smaller monitor, which is filmed by another video camera, uploaded to satellite, and disseminated around the world. America watches it on TV, cheers. Some of this footage is filmed off of a television onto 16mm film. This is what goes into the national archives. Crap. So, the original tapes have been found (spoiler: they never left Australia). So what, right? How good could they be, recorded back in the late 60's and all? Pretty darn good, apparently...seems recording heads were much better than the output available at the time (like playing a Blu-Ray disc on a B&W TV), and several recent projects have shown that it's possible to extract very high resolution data from these old analog tapes. How hi-rez? High enough to see Neil Armstrong's nipples get hard. (be sure to click on that picture) So when can we see this amazing footage? Probably soon.

Google Earth Typography

parudox — Mon, 29 Jun 2009 20:26:25 -0800

The alphabet in satellite imagery of Slavonia. [via]

Hacking the Sky

Upton O'Good — Wed, 04 Mar 2009 14:46:44 -0800

Hacking the Sky: Robert Simpson writes astronomy tools for use with Google Earth, Google Sky, and Twitter.

Is LEO too Crowded?

Chinese Jet Pilot — Wed, 11 Feb 2009 15:48:03 -0800

"They ran into each other. Nothing has the right of way up there. We don't have an air traffic controller in space. There is no universal way of knowing what's coming in your direction." An unprecedented collision of two orbiting satellites yesterday highlights the increasing threat of space junk.

Inauguration from Space!

blahblahblah — Tue, 20 Jan 2009 19:16:24 -0800

The GeoEye-1 (aka "The Google Satellite") took pictures of the inauguration from 423 miles up. The crowds of over a million around the Capitol and spilling up the Mall and around the city are a sight, even from space. GeoEye also offers a gallery of other impressive high-resolution satellite shots, including themed sections ranging from world universities (featuring great shots of the Head of the Charles Regatta) to natural disasters.

The Earth Observatory

homunculus — Wed, 14 Jan 2009 22:42:51 -0800

Earth, observed. Standout photographs from NASA's Earth Observatory website.

How To Find Yourself In One Easy Step

scrump — Thu, 30 Oct 2008 10:33:44 -0800

Approximately two years ago, James Kim died after he and his family were stranded, snowbound, in their car on the Oregon coast (Previously, previously, and (selflink) previously). But what if he'd had a Personal Locator Beacon (PLB)? PLBs are a subset of emergency locator transmitters, which have been in mandatory use on aircraft since 1973. Somewhat more recently, Mo Nickels posted in 2001 on the COSPAS-SARSAT program. Founded in 1982, it's still going strong twenty-six years later, as you can read in their reports on rescues. In 2003, PLBs became available for nationwide civilian use: prior to that time, only Alaskans could use them. According to ACR, a major PLB manufacturer, PLB use has exploded since the Kim tragedy in 2006. As of October, 2008, NOAA credits emergency beacons with helping to save almost six thousand people in the US and over twenty-four thousand people worldwide, including 236 people so far this year. You can rent them, you can buy them, and, most importantly, you can find out how well they work from the gearheads at Equipped.org. Finally, if you already own a PLB, you can register yours with NOAA.

Baghdad Nights

homunculus — Tue, 23 Sep 2008 14:12:29 -0800

Baghdad nights: evaluating the US military ‘surge’ using nighttime light signatures (PDF). A team of UCLA geographers using satellite imagery to track the amount of light emitted in Baghdad at night found that electricity use in Sunni neighborhoods fell prior to the surge and never returned, indicating that ethnic cleansing by Shiite militias drove the Sunnis away before the surge began and was largely responsible for the subsequent decrease in violence. [Via Passport]

Weather World 2010

Upton O'Good — Sun, 13 Jul 2008 12:26:36 -0800

The Weather World 2010 project at UIUC began as a comprehensive meteorology tutorial designed for a high school/undergraduate level. It has since expanded to include guides to remote sensing and reading weather maps. (Some highlights include optical effects, severe storms, and the basics of weather forecasting.) For folks in the US, it also has current surface and satellite imagery for a number of different atmospheric properties.

Mother Nature is an abstract artist

CunningLinguist — Wed, 09 Jul 2008 07:48:50 -0800

30 Incredible Abstract Satellite Images of Earth "From 400 miles away, the earth transforms into abstract art. The global landscape is impressionist, cubist and pointillist." Nice NASA images from 2000, downloadable as wallpaper.

Geospatial Technologies and Human Rights

homunculus — Sun, 15 Jun 2008 13:47:30 -0800

Satellites Document War, Destruction From Outer Space. The AAAS's Geospatial Technologies and Human Rights Project uses high-resolution satellite photography to detect and call attention to human rights violations.

TV Pirate Tells All

whir — Sat, 31 May 2008 18:33:38 -0800

Christopher Tarnovsky, smartcard programmer, gives a fascinating insider account of his years in the cloak-and-dagger world of satellite TV piracy. Tarnovsky began as a satellite pirate himself before being hired by a DirecTV contractor to develop anti-piracy electronic countermeasures; he was allegedly responsible for the "Black Sunday" attack on DirecTV pirates. The included video, though not directly relevant to his story, features an impressive display of hardware-hacking skills and is well worth watching. Previously: the end of DirecTV piracy, Black Sunday attack.

World Where's Waldo

majikstreet — Wed, 16 Apr 2008 15:30:28 -0800

NPR article on World Where's Waldo Link to the website A Canadian woman made a giant waldo and put it on top of her house and is waiting for the google earth satellites to pick him up.

Neither technology nor magic was sufficiently advanced.

Skorgu — Tue, 18 Mar 2008 15:15:16 -0800

Arthur C. Clarke, author of 2001, inventor of the telecommunications satellite and the only reason most geeks can find Sri Lanka on a map, has died shortly after celebrating his 90th birthday.

I Am The Eye In The Sky

Bora Horza Gobuchul — Thu, 13 Mar 2008 20:17:02 -0800

Discoveries made using satellite imagery, particularly via Google Earth, have made headlines in the blue and green before. Increasingly high-resolution photos, combined with obsessive interest, have lead inevitably to the next step: interpretation and analysis of spots on the Earth's surface for which information is restricted, censored, or classified, such as the preparedness of military defenses in North Korea and Iran, or the viability of Saudi Arabia's next big oil play. Of course, not all mapping is benevolent.

Video of USA193 satellite being shot down

6am — Thu, 21 Feb 2008 09:34:10 -0800

A video has been posted showing the shooting down of satellite USA193 high over the Pacific! Extra wicked photos. The pricey missile used. How to keep an eye out for flaming debris...

Travelling by mouseclick

desjardins — Fri, 14 Dec 2007 08:10:20 -0800

The most interesting spots on Google maps.

HobbySpace

Upton O'Good — Sun, 02 Dec 2007 00:22:33 -0800

HobbySpace hosts an exhaustive collection of information and links about space-related hobbies, including amateur astronomy, satellite design, and rocketry for both beginners and experts.

Kadath in the Cold Waste

Artw — Tue, 27 Nov 2007 14:13:02 -0800

Landsat Image Mosaic Of Antarctica UK and US researchers peice together the most detailed map of Antarctica yet, searching through years of data to find cloud free images.

September 2007 polar sea ice anomaly

sergeant sandwich — Fri, 12 Oct 2007 14:49:59 -0800

Video (8MB, MPEG) of arctic sea ice extent, recorded from January to September 2007. [other formats] This summer a dramatic decrease compared to previous years in the extent of the north pole ice cap was observed. Scientists are freaked out [bugmenot]. This summer, the Northwest Passage was open for a few weeks, allowing three ships to traverse it. This data was taken by the Advanced Microwave Scanning Radiometer instrument aboard NASA's Aqua satellite. Comparison with past years. More information here.

The Dawn of the Space Age

blahblahblah — Sun, 30 Sep 2007 21:50:34 -0800

Fifty years ago this week the heavens beeped (also, the beeps as recorded in Germany, Czechoslovakia, and Washington - though the accompanying light in the sky wasn't Sputnik after all). The launch of Sputnik started the Space Age causing a stir in the United States, and leading to the birth of NASA. The history and ongoing echoes of the Sputnik launch are wonderfully covered in a recent New York Times retrospective with interesting accompanying videos.

Steve Fossett Missing: Help find him by searching satellite imagery

nthdegx — Sun, 09 Sep 2007 07:00:13 -0800

Steve Fossett Missing: Help find him by searching satellite imagery

Radar images of earth

Glow Bucket — Mon, 13 Aug 2007 08:08:22 -0800

High resolution images of Earth. The German satellite TerraSAR-X was shot into space on June 15, and already four days after sent some beautiful pictures back to Earth. Pictures are described in German, but you'll figure it out.

The odd, the unusual, the unbelievable

Blazecock Pileon — Fri, 27 Jul 2007 07:08:34 -0800

Fighter jets, overturned tractor trailers, WW II bombers, cars parked on walls, and more of The Strangest Sights in Google Earth

Space objects

Burhanistan — Thu, 05 Jul 2007 21:26:57 -0800

Real time satellite tracking - another interesting use of Google Maps, Ajax, and orbital telemetry.