[Geysers] satellite imagery

[Steve Krause]

One of the great myths is that sat photos are realtime. There's a reason the CIA 
has to pay billions to keep satellites in orbit to keep tabs on specific areas 
of interest in realtime.

One or two mapping satellites may take a year to do a "full coverage" pass on 
the Earth. Now, factor in clouds, which typically cover 60% of the landmass on 
any given day. It easily takes 4 years to get full, unclouded photomosaics, and 
it may be from a variety of satellites with varying resolution, etc.

SRK

Dave TAYLOR wrote:

> I may be mistaken, but I don't believe the images provided by this link
> are 'real time', or anything close to it.  In looking in my own
> neighborhood, I can see the Wal-mart strip mall that was started 4 years
> ago.  On thie image, Wal-mart is there, but Village Inn, Checker Auto
> etc. are not built yet.  I get the feeling these photos are no more than
> 3 years old, but I may very well be mistaken.
> 
> Also, in looking at these photos, I notice that some parts of
> Yellowstone are not available at the highest levels of resolution.  For
> instance, Wapiti trail east of Ribbon Lake disappears for about 6-8
> miles, then the high resolution re-appears.  I know this is a remote
> area, but it surprises me that there isn't the higher resolution photos.
>  I don't know if this is b/c the satelite didn't take them, Google
> didn't pay for them or Google hasn't gotten them up yet.
> 
> Any ideas?
> 
> 
>>>>caros at aros.net 04/08/2005 1:35:06 PM >>>
>>>>
>  From Karen Webb
>     What fun!  Does anyone who's looking at the images have the 
> impression you can tell when some of the bigger fountain geysers are 
> erupting?  I can see Morning and Fountain filling (based on the shape
> of 
> the border and the amount of blue I'm seeing) but wondered if it was 
> refreshing fast enough to see little white bursts or steam clouds. 
> What 
> a nice fix for a dull April day!
> Karen
> 
> Glennon wrote:
> 
> 
>>I noticed that maps.google.com just placed satellite imagery online.
>>With it, Yellowstone's thermal basins are covered with ~1 meter/pixel
>>images. A toggle button in the upper right side of the interface goes
>>between graphic map and satellite imagery. The default is a graphic
>>line map.
>>
>>By the way, to get to the general vicinity, you might search: 82190
>>(zip code for Yellowstone).
>>
>>~Alan
>>
>>J. Alan Glennon
>>UCSB Geography