Category Archives: Eyes in the Sky

Eyes in the Sky, Real-time space

Hurricane Lane tracked from space as it nears Hawaii

Satellites are key to tracking hurricanes and giving sufficient warning to reduce damages and loss of life. Hurricane Lane, a rare major storm in the central Pacfic, is heading towards Hawaii and is being watched by satellites in GEO as well as by the ISS.

** Hurricane Lane from the ISS

Hurricane Lane was pictured by an Expedition 56 crew member as the International Space Station orbited nearly 250 miles above the Central Pacific Ocean on Aug. 22, 2018.

Hurricane Lane from the ISS

** NOAA satellite image – Aug.23.2018

** GOES satellite image time lapse of Lane movement on Aug.22.201

** Major Hurricane Lane Heads Toward Hawaii – (NESDIS – Aug.22.2018

GOES-15 satellite shows Hurricane Lane. Credits NOAA.

** NASA ISS video:

** NASA’s GPM Sees Hurricane Lane Threatening Hawaiian Islands With Heavy Rainfall

On Aug. 22 at 1:48 a.m. EDT (0548 UTC) the Global Precipitation Measurement mission or GPM core satellite passed over Hurricane Lane when it was a Category 5 hurricane in the Central Pacific Ocean. GPM found very heavy rain occurring in powerful storms located in Lane’s well defined eye wall. Moderate to heavy rainfall was also covering a large area extending outward from the eye. Credit: NASA/JAXA, Hal Pierce

** NASA-NOAA’s Suomi NPP Satellite Views Category 5 Hurricane Lane

On Aug. 22 at 8:08 a.m. EDT (0208 HST/1208 UTC) The VIIRS instrument aboard NASA-NOAA’s Suomi NPP Satellite passed over Hurricane Lane when it was a Category 5 storm in the Central Pacific Ocean. Suomi NPP provided night-time and infrared imagery that showed the eye, gravity waves, and feeder bands of thunderstorms wrapping into the eye. Image Credit: UWM-CIMSS/William Straka III.

NASA-NOAA's Suomi NPP Satellite Views Category 5 Hurricane Lane

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Eyes in the Sky, Space participation, Space Radio

Build a low cost system to receive images from GOES weather satellites

A reader points me to this item about a low cost system for receiving images from NOAA’s GOES weather satellites: HRIT and LRIT Low-Cost System – SDRplay Community Forum

This setup uses off-the-shelf components, is really easy to put together, and is comparatively low in cost. A key component of the low-cost HRIT/LRIT system is a new LNA [Low Noise Amplifier] for GOES satellite reception that NooElec, Inc. has been developing (currently described as the SAWBird GOES, though the name is subject to change when it goes into volume production). The SAWBird GOES was obtained as an Engineering Sample (for a fee) from NooElec, Inc. through their support department. The key elements of the system are as follows:

1) NooElec, Inc. SAWBird GOES w/power option ($24.95 plus $4 shipping; contact support@nooelec.com).
2) PremierTech ANT-GRID-24DBI antenna ($12.83 plus 24.25 shipping from Provantage, LLC; PN PREK014; www.provantage.com).
3) 50ft active USB extension cable ($11.98 on Ebay at [50FT High Speed 480Mbps USB 2.0 Active Repeater M/F Extension Cable Adapter Cord 607841309417 | eBay  – updated selection]).
4) N male to SMA male connector.
4) male-to-male SMA connector.
5) Low cost tripod.

(HRIT/LRIT refers to High Rate and Low Rate Information Transmission.)

GOES 16 Full Earth Image

More information and resources:

Premiertek Hi-Gain outdoor antenna from Provantage

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Eyes in the Sky

Satellites image fires, lava flows, and heatwaves in US and Europe

Here is a sampling of satellite images of recent events in the US and Europe:

** Fires in California: US weather satellites view wildfires in California: Geostationary Operational Environmental Satellite (GOES) 16 and 17: Monitoring storm systems and California’s wildfires | WHNT.com

More about satellite imaging of the US West Coast fires from space at NASA Satellite Sees Fires Up and Down U.S. West Coast | NASA.

** Volcano lava flows in Hawaii: NASA satellite captures lava destruction from Kilauea volcano – CNET

Lava from Hawaii’s Kilauea Volcano flowing to the Pacific Ocean, imaged July 25 by NASA’s Advanced Spaceborne Thermal Emission and Reflection (ASTER) instrument. Vegetation shown in red, clouds in white and lava in yellow. Credit: NASA/METI/AIST/Japan Space Systems/U.S./Japan ASTER Science Team
› Full image and caption

Another image from Satellite View of Kilauea Eruption – NASA JPL:

This image from NASA’s Advanced Spaceborne Thermal Emission and Reflection Radiometer (ASTER) instrument on NASA’s Terra spacecraft show recent eruptions of Kilauea volcano on the island of Hawaii (the Big Island). Following days of increased seismic activity, Kilauea erupted May 3, 2018, and triggered a number of additional fissure eruptions along the East Rift Zone. The eruptions and high level of sulfur dioxide gas (SO2) prompted evacuations in the area, including the Leilani Estates subdivision near the town of Pahoa. The ASTER images, acquired on May 6, 2018, show different aspects of the eruption. A color composite depicts vegetation in red, and old lava flows in black and gray. Superimposed on the image in yellow are hotspots detected on the thermal infrared bands. The easternmost hot spots show the newly formed fissures and the lava flow spilling to the northwest. Continue...

** Fires in Greece: DigitalGlobe shows images of the sites in Greece where wildfires hit suddenly.

This article includes side by side views with sliders to compare before and after the fires: Satellite images show the intensity of the flames that devastated coastal Greece — Quartz

** Europe’s summer heatwave:

As this year’s heatwave continues, the Copernicus Sentinel-3 mission reveals once again how the colour of our vegetation has changed in just one month. These two images cover the same area: part of Ireland, the UK, the Netherlands, Belgium, part of Germany and part of France, but the difference between them couldn’t be more striking. The first, captured on 28 June 2018, is predominantly green, depicting healthy vegetation. The second, captured on 25 July 2018, however, is mainly brown, showing just how much the vegetation has changed owing to the long hot dry spell Europe has been enduring over the last weeks.

These two images were captured by Sentinel-3’s ocean and land colour instrument. See also similar captures over Germany, Denmark and Sweden: European drought.

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Eyes in the Sky

Videos: Watch US forests change over decades in satellite images + Access satellite imagery with EOSDIS app

Check out this interesting video from NASA Goddard showing the continual changes in the health and status of North America forests as seen with imagery from the Landsat satellites, which have carried out remote sensing from orbit since the 1970s:

(Via Video: Satellite imagery highlights changes in US forests – DCNewsroom.) 

If you want daily updates on the earth’s environment as monitored from space, check out NASA Goddard’s app: EOSDIS Worldview

This application allows you to interactively browse global satellite imagery within hours of it being acquired.

NASA’s Worldview app lets you explore Earth as it looks right now or as it looked almost 20 years ago. Through an easy-to-use map interface, you can watch tropical storms developing over the Pacific Ocean; track the movement of icebergs after they calve from glaciers and ice shelves; see wildfires spread and grow as they burn vegetation in its path. Pan-and-zoom to your region of the world to see not only what it looks like today, but to investigate changes over time. Worldview’s nighttime lights layers provides a truly unique perspective of our planet at night.

What else can you do with Worldview? Add imagery layers by discipline, natural hazard, or key word to learn more about what’s happening on this dynamic planet. View Earth’s frozen regions with the Arctic and Antarctic views. Take a look at current natural events like tropical storms, volcanic eruptions, wildfires and icebergs at the touch of a button using the “Events” tab. See a view you like? Take a snapshot and share your map with a friend or colleague. Want to track the spread of a wildfire? You can even create an animated gif to see change over time.

 

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Eyes in the Sky

Video: Satellite monitoring of forests and deforestation

Satellites are key to monitoring the state of forests around the world (e.g. see posts here and here). The company Planet has over 175 small satellites in orbit that are observing the earth and imaging the entire surface of the world every day, including views of every forest there is. In recognition of International Day of Forests back on March 21st, Planet released a video showing 7000 thumbnail images of forests around the world taken in a single day: Capturing the World’s Forests Over a Single Day – Planet Stories – Medium

From the Planet item:

Pretty wild, right? Now what if we told you the video contains only a fraction of the total number of forest imagery Planet collects in a day — in this case, around 95,000 images. Planet collects a massive amount of data each day and has around 500 images for any given location on Earth. To extract “forests” from this data, we used an algorithm built to detect forest cover, dense green imagery, and high near-infrared averages.

To help people actually “see the forests for the trees,” we then applied more filters to those 95,000 images so those with lots of cloud cover or with visible defects were removed. (Fun fact: it would take around 30 minutes to watch all 95,000 images at 5 images per second — not exactly optimized for social.) Afterward, we organized imagery by continent and built an animation to showcase the scale and diversity of forests globally.

Such imagery is interesting but can also generated real data on the major problem of deforestation:

Of course, forests are not always untouched, pristine places, but dynamic environments that change dramatically with human interaction. Sadly, the world loses an area of forest the size of 48 football fields every minute due to deforestation and forest degradation.

Here is an infographic sent to me by a reader illustrating that high rate of the loss of forests around the world: The Scale of Deforestation – Eco2 Greetings

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