WorldView-2 First Images

Wednesday, 21 October, 2009

Digital Globe’s WorldView-2 successfully launched last week and acquired its first imagery on 19th October over the US. And with US government restrictions on the resale of commercial high resolution satellite imagery set at a maximum of 50cm, Digital Globe has focused upon increasing the number of spectral bands and agility of the satellite. So there is a 0.5m panchromatic band, but then 8 multispectral bands at 1.8m (full details). In addition to the traditional VNIR (RGB, NIR), there is also:

-400-450: used for coastal studies; blue light penetrates far deeper in to water (some studies have shown upto 26m for MSS band 1) and so, amongst other things, this could be used for near-shore bathymetry-585-625: “yellow” band targeted at vegetation studies-705-745: “red edge” again targeted at vegetation studies-860-1040: a second NIR band

And predicted accuracy of geolocation is meant to be ~4.1m.

Degrees can cost less….

Monday, 12 October, 2009

An interesting article over at the BBC about how to get a debt-free degree. Really it’s about being sensible and tapping up potential sources of income during your 3 year stint. None of it is rocket science, but there are a lot of people that just don’t twig. Well worth a read.