Last month we covered the Burning Man festival, and how the event has been captured by satellite imagery a number of times, with the images available in Google Earth’s Historical Imagery. It turns out that this year’s event was also captured on 8 different days – this time with Google’s own satellites! Thanks to GEB reader Eric for letting us know.
The images were taken by SkySat-1 and SkySat-2 owned by Skybox Imaging, which Google acquired earlier this year. Skybox have released the images via the Maps Gallery, as well as creating a number of animated gif images shown on their official blog. You can also read more about it on TechCrunch.
A gif animation of the Burning Man festival created by Skybox Imaging.
It is possible to view the images in Google Earth using this kml file
from the Maps Gallery.
Skybox currently has two satellites, but is planning a constellation of 24. SkySat-1 also captured the first HD resolution video of Earth from space as seen in the YouTube video below. For the best results be sure to watch it in high resolution and full screen.
About Timothy Whitehead
Timothy has been using Google Earth since 2004 when it was still called Keyhole before it was renamed Google Earth in 2005 and has been a huge fan ever since. He is a programmer working for Red Wing Aerobatx and lives in Cape Town, South Africa.