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Zoom Earth: Website lets you look at live satellite photos of earths surface

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Re: Zoom Earth: Website lets you look at live satellite photos of earths surface

#32

Post by blhack »

qeternity wrote: post #6
supernova87a wrote: post #4

I wouldn't call it the "live" you would expect (although depends on what you were expecting -- I wasn't honestly expecting a live view of "anywhere on Earth", but at least some level of detail). As soon as you zoom in to any level of It's more like a "live" view if you were to look at the entire Earth at once from the Apollo capsule...

Well the only way to get “live” imagery at any level of perceptible detail is to be a three letter agency. Even the highest levels of private sector aren’t tasking satellites with that level of latency.

Check out planet labs. Not a government agency, and taking high resolution scans of the entire planet very frequently.

Re: Zoom Earth: Website lets you look at live satellite photos of earths surface

#33

Post by blhack »

geuis wrote: post #16
arkanciscan wrote: post #5

Planet does it better https://www.planet.com/gallery/

There’s a Planet Explorer, https://www.planet.com/explorer/ . I worked on building it a few years ago. Unfortunately you have to have a Planet account and I believe those are paid only.

There's a free trial account.

Re: Zoom Earth: Website lets you look at live satellite photos of earths surface

#35

Post by Twirrim »

supernova87a wrote: post #4

I wouldn't call it the "live" you would expect (although depends on what you were expecting -- I wasn't honestly expecting a live view of "anywhere on Earth", but at least some level of detail). As soon as you zoom in to any level of It's more like a "live" view if you were to look at the entire Earth at once from the Apollo capsule...

Some of the "old" views are really quite old. Older than that visible in Google Maps, for example.

Re: Zoom Earth: Website lets you look at live satellite photos of earths surface

#36

Post by jerkstate »

neave wrote: post #9
supernova87a wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sure, that's fair. But what / who then are they trying to sell the idea of with the phrase "live"? Is any average person really interested in a "live" view of the whole Earth, such that it would be meaningfully different or changed compared to the static blue marble photo we're all familiar with? I think we all know what we're interested in when we think of "live"... things at the <<1km level.

I'm the developer of Zoom Earth. "Live" is shorthand for "near real-time". But, you're right. Most visitors simply want to see their house from space. Which is understandable, but also kinda depressing. They could look at _anywhere in the world in near realtime_, but they wanna see what their roof or garden looks like. Meteorologists love it though.

Why not just say how old each image is, like with a color overlay? “Zoom past this level and you will be looking at 400 days ago” etc

Re: Zoom Earth: Website lets you look at live satellite photos of earths surface

#39

Post by basicplus2 »

This reminds me of a story..

A friend of mine was putting in a subdial and phoned up some gov department to find out the lat and long for his property.. after being put through about 5 different departments the last guy he got said "where do you want it?" And he repeated his address, the guy rhen said " no I mean where in your back garden? Go out side and stand where you are going to install it and i will give you the exact lat and long" yes this guy was watching him live! this was back when the first home phone detatchable handsets were out.. a long time ago. He never did find out who he ended up talking to..

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