OT: Google maps plane routes, too
Floyd Rogers
The satellite photo caught a plane (looks like a B767 or A300 or similar)
over the WA Cascades. They're normally around 15K feet at this location,
descending towards SeaTac (KSEA) from points in the SW US.
Floyd Rogers
Rich Piehl
Don't know if it's still there but there was also one caught on approach
to O'Hare from the west. They caught it over a highway interchange so
it looks like it's parked along side the road.
Take care,
Rich
God bless the USA
Michael Moroney
>http://maps.google.com/?ie=UTF8&ll=46.99688,-121.356869&spn=0.02204,0.044203&t=h&z=15
In a USGS orthophoto of the quarter quad which has my house, there
happened to be a small plane caught in flight. I didn't see any other
orthophotos with planes in flight other than at active airport runways.
Jonathan L
> http://maps.google.com/?ie=UTF8&ll=46.99688,-121.356869&spn=0.02204,0...
>
> The satellite photo caught a plane (looks like a B767 or A300 or similar)
> over the WA Cascades. They're normally around 15K feet at this location,
> descending towards SeaTac (KSEA) from points in the SW US.
>
> Floyd Rogers
You usually get a nice view of Mt. Rainier from that spot, too. Once
I was flying back in the evening, with overcast skies, and the top
third of the mountain was jutting out from the clouds, inky black in
the night. Too bad it was too dark to get a picture.
-Jonathan
Nathan Perry
"Floyd Rogers" <fbloo...@hotmail.com> wrote:
> http://maps.google.com/?ie=UTF8&ll=46.99688,-121.356869&spn=0.02204,0.044203&t
> =h&z=15
>
> The satellite photo caught a plane (looks like a B767 or A300 or similar)
> over the WA Cascades. They're normally around 15K feet at this location,
> descending towards SeaTac (KSEA) from points in the SW US.
I'm surprised you don't run across this more often, actually...
John Szalay
The satellite photo caught a plane (looks like a B767 or A300 or
>> similar) over the WA Cascades. They're normally around 15K feet at
>> this location, descending towards SeaTac (KSEA) from points in the SW
>> US.
>
> I'm surprised you don't run across this more often, actually...
>
If you take the time( and it takes a lot of time,)
you can see aircraft flying in a lot of places. the contrails are a good
indicator of them, around vegas, to LA, there are several visible, even
low flying ones outside the normal corridor.
Andrew Tompkins
Actually, it's not surprising at all that you don't see this often.
Just a reminder: at these resolutions, the photos aren't taken by
satellite but by aircraft. The photography aircraft probably flies at
or below the same altitude ranges as the big airliners, which means that
the only time an in-flight aircraft will be caught in a photo is during
the 20 minutes of departure and climb or the 30 minutes of descent and
approach. Add to that the fact that, despite what the news says, there
is still a lot of room up there which makes the possibility of 2
aircraft crossing paths near enough to get a downward photo of one remote.
You're most likely to get these types of situations where the aircraft
is on final approach, in a major approach corridor, or on a standard
instrument departure.
Now, puddle-jumpers and bug-smashers are a different story, since they
operate at lower altitudes. But, being smaller, they can more easily
'hide' in the ground clutter.
--Andy
Floyd Rogers
> Nathan Perry wrote:
>> "Floyd Rogers" <fbloo...@hotmail.com> wrote:
>>
>>> http://maps.google.com/?ie=UTF8&ll=46.99688,-121.356869&spn=0.02204,0.044203&t
>>> =h&z=15
>>>
>>> The satellite photo caught a plane (looks like a B767 or A300 or
>>> similar) over the WA Cascades. They're normally around 15K feet at this
>>> location, descending towards SeaTac (KSEA) from points in the SW US.
>>
>> I'm surprised you don't run across this more often, actually...
>
> Actually, it's not surprising at all that you don't see this often. Just a
> reminder: at these resolutions, the photos aren't taken by satellite but
> by aircraft. The photography aircraft probably flies at or below the same
> altitude ranges as the big airliners, which means that the only time an
> in-flight aircraft will be caught in a photo is during the 20 minutes of
> departure and climb or the 30 minutes of descent and approach. Add to
> that the fact that, despite what the news says, there is still a lot of
> room up there which makes the possibility of 2 aircraft crossing paths
> near enough to get a downward photo of one remote.
Andrew, _in this instance_ it is a satellite photo. It's in the middle of
nowhere,
essentially, so there is no need for higher resolution. I don't think you
read
my post quite closely enough, or are commenting about the _general_
case near airports.
FloydR
Andrew Tompkins
I may be mistaken (newer satellite technology from a couple of years ago
or some such) but, as far as I know, satellite coverage doesn't go above
the 6th slot down on the zoom scale, or the 8th slot down when there is
aerial coverage (it gets too grainy). The picture you provided was on
the 5th slot down (and the same picture is used up to the 3rd slot).
I'm fairly certain that this is aerial photography. They continue to
add more and more high resolution coverage over this country and many
others. It doesn't have to be urban or even lightly populated to get
aerial coverage.
--Andy
Floyd Rogers
> Floyd Rogers wrote:
>> Andrew, _in this instance_ it is a satellite photo. It's in the middle
>
> I may be mistaken (newer satellite technology from a couple of years ago
> or some such) but, as far as I know, satellite coverage doesn't go above
> the 6th slot down on the zoom scale, or the 8th slot down when there is
> aerial coverage (it gets too grainy). The picture you provided was on the
> 5th slot down (and the same picture is used up to the 3rd slot). I'm
> fairly certain that this is aerial photography.
I grant that it's possible that it was captured from a plane, but IMO said
plane would have to be very high to capture a plane at 15-18000 feet in
such poor detail.
There are also artifacts in the picture coverage that indicate to me it's
satellite -
overall shading of the hills (note the brighter spots on the ridges), yet
lack
of shadows on the ground in adjacent frames, etc.
No real way of telling unless you had access to their database.
FloydR
Andrew Tompkins
> "Andrew Tompkins" <and...@comcast.net> wrote
>> Floyd Rogers wrote:
>>> Andrew, _in this instance_ it is a satellite photo. It's in the middle
>>> of ...
>> I may be mistaken (newer satellite technology from a couple of years ago
>> or some such) but, as far as I know, satellite coverage doesn't go above
>> the 6th slot down on the zoom scale, or the 8th slot down when there is
>> aerial coverage (it gets too grainy). The picture you provided was on the
>> 5th slot down (and the same picture is used up to the 3rd slot). I'm
>> fairly certain that this is aerial photography.
>
> I grant that it's possible that it was captured from a plane, but IMO said
> plane would have to be very high to capture a plane at 15-18000 feet in
> such poor detail.
>
This can also happen as a result of being very near the closer object
and being focused on the farther object. People who wear glasses see
this all the time. They don't see the individual specks of dust that
accumulate but have to clean the lenses when too much accumulates.
>
> There are also artifacts in the picture coverage that indicate to me it's
> satellite -
> overall shading of the hills (note the brighter spots on the ridges), yet
> lack
> of shadows on the ground in adjacent frames, etc.
>
I see the lighting patterns that you mention. In all my Google Maps
wandering, I have never seen this on either aerial or satellite photos
(including the one several slots down on the zoom scale). From the
shadows that do show, I'd estimate it to have been about 6-7 PM during
the summer when the shot was taken which is probably more of a
contributing factor to that effect than whether the shot was taken from
aircraft or satellite.
>
> No real way of telling unless you had access to their database.
>
I agree. You can't even really tell from the image sources presented on
the picture since some of them are obviously satellite and some could be
aircraft (the USDA one as this is National Forest land).
--Andy
Floyd Rogers
> Floyd Rogers wrote:
>> There are also artifacts in the picture coverage that indicate to me it's
>> satellite -
>> overall shading of the hills (note the brighter spots on the ridges), yet
>> lack
>> of shadows on the ground in adjacent frames, etc.
>
> I see the lighting patterns that you mention. In all my Google Maps
> wandering, I have never seen this on either aerial or satellite photos
> (including the one several slots down on the zoom scale). From the
> shadows that do show, I'd estimate it to have been about 6-7 PM during the
> summer when the shot was taken which is probably more of a contributing
> factor to that effect than whether the shot was taken from aircraft or
> satellite.
The bright spots appear to be ridges that are in the sun. Weird glance
angle? But the thing that leads me to believe they're satellite is that the
next swath to the west has shadows that show a 10 am time... I would
expect that a plane would be able to re-visit that day within the hour
and would show the evening time, rather than another day like a satellite
would experience.
Ummm. However, just had another thought. Most recon sats are in
polar-orbiting sun-synchronous orbits, which would blow my theory
(that it's a satellite) out of the water, so to speak.
Hmmmm. FloydR
Andrew Tompkins
> "Andrew Tompkins" <and...@comcast.net> wrote
>> Floyd Rogers wrote:
>>> There are also artifacts in the picture coverage that indicate to me it's
>>> satellite -
>>> overall shading of the hills (note the brighter spots on the ridges), yet
>>> lack
>>> of shadows on the ground in adjacent frames, etc.
>> I see the lighting patterns that you mention. In all my Google Maps
>> wandering, I have never seen this on either aerial or satellite photos
>> (including the one several slots down on the zoom scale). From the
>> shadows that do show, I'd estimate it to have been about 6-7 PM during the
>> summer when the shot was taken which is probably more of a contributing
>> factor to that effect than whether the shot was taken from aircraft or
>> satellite.
>
> The bright spots appear to be ridges that are in the sun. Weird glance
> angle? But the thing that leads me to believe they're satellite is that the
> next swath to the west has shadows that show a 10 am time... I would
> expect that a plane would be able to re-visit that day within the hour
> and would show the evening time, rather than another day like a satellite
> would experience.
>
That's actually a single square shot, not a swath and taken about a year
earlier than the surrounding swath (2005 while the surrounding shots are
2006). It's probably overlaid on the newer shot because it has better
resolution.
As for the weird effect, I think it's more a processing effect than a
visual effect. It completely surrounds Mt. Adams which wouldn't happen
if it had something to do with sun angle. Although, a processing effect
would probably affect the whole photo rather than parts dependent on
what was being photographed (i.e. the terrain).
>
> Ummm. However, just had another thought. Most recon sats are in
> polar-orbiting sun-synchronous orbits, which would blow my theory
> (that it's a satellite) out of the water, so to speak.
>
I highly doubt that they are getting stuff from recon sats. More likely
that they are getting hi-res stuff from commercial hi-res sats like IKONOS.
--Andy
johnicon
possibility as there's not many left in commercial or freighter
service.
Paul D. DeRocco
>
> It's either a DC-10, MD-11 or an L-1011. The L-1011 is a very remote
> possibility as there's not many left in commercial or freighter
> service.
Not an L-1011, because the engines are too close to the fusilage, I think.
In Google Earth, the wingspan measures about 300 feet, which is of course
bigger than any plane out there. A DC-10 is about 150, and an MD-11 about
170. Since the elevation at that point is about 4700 feet, and that's the
reference for Google Earth's measurements, it suggests that the picture was
taken from an altitude above the surface about 1.75 to 2 times the altitude
of the plane itself. If the plane was flying at 15000 feet, then the image
must have been taken from somewhere around 25000 feet. If it was taken from
much higher, the plane would have been closer to its actual size. So I'd
guess high aerial imagery, not sat imagery.
--
Ciao, Paul D. DeRocco
Paul mailto:pder...@ix.netcom.com