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Remote Sensing and Image Processing: 8
Dr. Mathias (Mat) Disney
UCL Geography
Office: 301, 3rd Floor, Chandler House
Tel: 7670 4290 (x24290)
Email: [email protected]
www.geog.ucl.ac.uk/~mdisney
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• Last week introduced– spatial and spectral resolution
– narrow v broad band tradeoffs....
• This week– temporal and angular resolution
– orbits and sensor swath
Recap
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• Single or multiple observations• How far apart are observations in time?
– One-off, several or many?
• Depends (as usual) on application– Is it dynamic?
– If so, over what timescale?
Temporal
Useful link: http://www.earth.nasa.gov/science/index.html
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• Examples– Vegetation stress monitoring, weather, rainfall
• hours to days
– Terrestrial carbon, ocean surface temperature• days to months to years
– Glacier dynamics, ice sheet mass balance• Months to decades
Temporal
Useful link: http://www.earth.nasa.gov/science/index.html
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• Sensor orbit– geostationary orbit - over same spot
• BUT distance means entire hemisphere is viewed e.g. METEOSAT
– polar orbit can use Earth rotation to view entire surface
• Sensor swath– Wide swath allows more rapid revisit
• typical of moderate res. instruments for regional/global applications
– Narrow swath == longer revisit times• typical of higher resolution for regional to local applications
What determines temporal sampling
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• Orbital characteristics – orbital mechanics developed by Johannes Kepler (1571-
1630), German mathematician
– Explained observations of Danish nobleman Tyco Brahe (1546-1601)
– Kepler favoured elliptical orbits (from Copernicus’ solar-centric system)
• Properties of ellipse?
Orbits and swaths
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• Kepler’s Laws – deduced from Brahe’s data after his death
– see nice Java applet http://www-groups.dcs.st-and.ac.uk/~history/Java/Ellipse.html
• Kepler’s 1st law: – Orbits of planets are elliptical, with sun at one focus
Kepler’s laws
From:http://csep10.phys.utk.edu/astr161/lect/history/kepler.html
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• Kepler’s 2nd law – line joining planet to sun sweeps out equal areas in equal times
Kepler’s laws
From:http://csep10.phys.utk.edu/astr161/lect/history/kepler.html
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• Kepler’s 3rd law – ratio of the squares of the revolutionary periods
for two planets (P1, P2) is equal to the ratio of the cubes of their semimajor axes (R1, R2)
– P12/P2
2 = R13/R2
3 i.e. orbital period increases dramatically with R
Kepler’s laws
From:http://csep10.phys.utk.edu/astr161/lect/history/kepler.html
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• Geostationary? – Circular orbit in the equatorial plane, altitude ~36,000km
– Orbital period, T?
• Advantages– See whole Earth disk at once due to large distance
– See same spot on the surface all the time i.e. high temporal coverage
– Big advantage for weather monitoring satellites - knowing atmos. dynamics critical to short-term forecasting and numerical weather prediction (NWP)
• GOES (Geostationary Orbiting Environmental Satellites), operated by NOAA (US National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration)
• http://www.noaa.gov/ and http://www.goes.noaa.gov/
Orbital pros and cons
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• Meteorological satellites - combination of GOES-E, GOES-W, METEOSAT (Eumetsat), GMS (NASDA), IODC (old Meteosat 5)– GOES 1st gen. (GOES-1 - ‘75 GOES-7 ‘95); 2nd gen. (GOES-8++ ‘94)
Geostationary
From http://www.sat.dundee.ac.uk/pdusfaq.html
METEOSAT 0° WGOES-W 135° WGOES-E 75° W GMS 140° EIODC 63° E
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• METEOSAT - whole earth disk every 15 mins
Geostationary
From http://www.goes.noaa.gov/f_meteo.html
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• Disadvantages– typically low spatial resolution due to high altitude
– e.g. METEOSAT 2nd Generation (MSG) 1x1km visible, 3x3km IR (used to be 3x3 and 6x6 respectively)
• MSG has SEVIRI and GERB instruments
• http://www.meteo.pt/landsaf/eumetsat_sat_char.html
– Cannot see poles very well (orbit over equator)• spatial resolution at 60-70° N several times lower
• not much good beyond 60-70°
– NB Geosynchronous orbit same period as Earth, but not equatorial
Geostationary orbits
From http://www.esa.int/SPECIALS/MSG/index.html
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• Advantages– full polar orbit inclined 90 to equator
• typically few degrees off so poles not covered
• orbital period, T, typically 90 - 105mins
– near circular orbit between 300km (low Earth orbit) and 1000km
– typically higher spatial resolution than geostationary
– rotation of Earth under satellite gives (potential) total coverage • ground track repeat typically 14-16 days
Polar & near polar orbits
From http://collections.ic.gc.ca/satellites/english/anatomy/orbit/
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(near) Polar orbits: NASA Terra
From http://visibleearth.nasa.gov/cgi-bin/viewrecord?134
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Near-polar orbits: Landsat
From http://www.iitap.iastate.edu/gccourse/satellite/satellite_lecture_new.html & http://eosims.cr.usgs.gov:5725/DATASET_DOCS/landsat7_dataset.html
– inclination 98.2, T = 98.8mins– http://www.cscrs.itu.edu.tr/page.en.php?id=51
– http://landsat.gsfc.nasa.gov/project/Comparison.html
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• Disadvantages– need to launch to precise altitude and orbital inclination
– orbital decay• at LEOs (Low Earth Orbits) < 1000km, drag from atmosphere
• causes orbit to become more eccentric
• Drag increases with increasing solar activity (sun spots) - during solar maximum (~11yr cycle) drag height increased by 100km!
– Build your own orbit: http://lectureonline.cl.msu.edu/~mmp/kap7/orbiter/orbit.htm
(near) Polar orbits
From http://collections.ic.gc.ca/satellites/english/anatomy/orbit/
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• Swath describes ground area imaged by instrument during overpass
Instrument swath
one sample
two samples
three samples
satellite ground swath
direction of travel
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MODIS on-board Terra
From http://visibleearth.nasa.gov/cgi-bin/viewrecord?130
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Terra instrument swaths compared
From http://visibleearth.nasa.gov/Sensors/Terra/
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• MODIS, POLDER, AVHRR etc.– swaths typically several 1000s of km
– lower spatial resolution
– Wide area coverage
– Large overlap obtains many more view and illumination angles (much better BRDF sampling)
– Rapid repeat time
Broad swath
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MODIS: building global picture
From http://visibleearth.nasa.gov/Sensors/Terra/
• Note across-track “whiskbroom” type scanning mechanism
• swath width of 2330km (250-1000m resolution)
• Hence, 1-2 day repeat cycle
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MODIS: building global picture
From http://visibleearth.nasa.gov/Sensors/Terra/
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• Landsat TM/MSS/ETM+, IKONOS, QuickBird etc.– swaths typically few 10s to 100skm
– higher spatial resolution
– local to regional coverage NOT global
– far less overlap (particularly at lower latitudes)
– May have to wait weeks/months for revisit
Narrow swath
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Landsat: local view
From http://visibleearth.nasa.gov/Sensors/Terra/
•185km swath width, hence 16-day repeat cycle (and spatial res. 25m)
•Contiguous swaths overlap (sidelap) by 7.3% at the equator
•Much greater overlap at higher latitudes (80% at 84°)
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IKONOS & QuickBird: very local view!
•QuickBird: 16.5km swath at nadir, 61cm! panchromatic, 2.44m multispectral
•http://www.digitalglobe.com
•IKONOS: 11km swath at nadir, 1m panchromatic, 4m multispectral
•http://www.spaceimaging.com/
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• Coverage (hence angular &/or temporal sampling) due to combination of orbit and swath– Mostly swath - many orbits nearly same
• MODIS and Landsat have identical orbital characteristics: inclination 98.2°, h=705km, T = 99mins BUT swaths of 2400km and 185km hence repeat of 1-2 days and 16 days respectively
– Most EO satellites typically near-polar orbits with repeat tracks every 16 or so days
– BUT wide swath instrument can view same spot much more frequently than narrow
• Tradeoffs again, as a function of objectives
Summary: angular, temporal resolution
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