Kayaks seen from space

[alexsidles]

Just goes to show, you never know who's watching out there!

Chain Bridge, Chesapeake and Ohio Canal, VA:

Chuckanut Rocks, Chuckanut Bay, WA:

Canoe Pass, Thetis and Kuper Islands, BC:

Copeland Islands, Discovery Islands BC:

Cypress Head, San Juan Islands, WA:

Fisherman's Point, Quilcene, WA:

Foster Island, Seattle, WA:

 

[alexsidles]

Hope Island, South Puget Sound, WA:

Freshwater Bay, Strait of Juan de Fuca, WA:

Lummi Island, San Juan Islands, WA:

Seagull Lake, Boundary Waters Canoe Area, MN (probably canoes, not kayaks):

Seneca Creek Park, MD:

Smugglers Cove, Sunshine Coast, BC:

Swinomish Channel, north Puget Sound, WA:

Willis Island, Broken Group Islands, BC:

Yap-Kee-Um Beach, Lake Coeur D'Alene, ID:

 

[eriktheviking]

Cool photos Alex.

Not to rain on the parade but I think civilian satellite photos are restricted to 30cm per pixel resolution. Just eyeballing the high res images, they look better than that. So some of the highest resolution shots are likely aerial photos. Google does not make it clear what the source of different images are in GE.

 

[mick_allen]

I remember playing around with this in GE with the intention of making downloads of site layouts/possibilities for multiple sites of interest: used up too much space and time for it to be useful [for me]:

 

[alexsidles]

30cm resolution (the maximum available from today's commercial imaging satellites) is pretty darn good. At 30cm, each hatch cover on the kayak and each blade of the paddle gets its own pixel, and the cockpit of the kayak gets several pixels. I think it's possible that all of these pictures of kayaks were shot from space.

As Erik says, Google does not publish the source or resolution of the imagery it uses in Google Earth. However, here are some sample shots confirmed to be 30cm. None of the sample shots picture kayaks, but I estimate that a kayak would show up as well or better in the sample shots than the kayaks do in the Google Earth images above:

https://spacenews.com/a-detailed-view-of-the-ground-with-30-centimeter-satellite-imagery/

Alex

 

[eriktheviking]

30cm resolution (the maximum available from today's commercial imaging satellites) is pretty darn good. At 30cm, each hatch cover on the kayak and each blade of the paddle gets its own pixel, and the cockpit of the kayak gets several pixels. I think it's possible that all of these pictures of kayaks were shot from space.

Yes very hard to tell. The top one in Virginia looks too good to me- the detail in the car windshields and tree branches etc. The highest resolution views always seem to be close to urban areas and cities- especially in the USA. Possibly Google pays for higher resolution data there. The shots from the Broken Group and Copeland Islands seem more typical of the best resolutions on the BC coast. I wish we had something like those resolutions on the remote bits in BC as a tool for trip planning.

 

[nootka]

I was going to compare the new imagery with the old

Kayaks from space

Guess the location and you get to post the next pic, it will be fun. Trust me :) Use google maps/earth Must have some land in the image. Ill go first. Did I already try this game here???

www.westcoastpaddler.com

but the old thread is fubar.