skysat

Skybox captures Tower of London poppies from space

January 6, 2015

In June last year Google acquired Skybox Imaging. So far they have launched two imaging satellites, but plan to launch many more.

We have had a look at some of their early images, such as the animated gifs of Burning Man created from images captured during the festival.

We also had a look at the Skybox for Good program that collects satellite imagery for selected non-profits.

Skybox has posted on their site a satellite image showing the Poppy display at the Tower of London that took place in November last year to mark the centenary of the outbreak of the First World War.

Satellite image of the Tower of London showing the moat filled with red ceramic poppies. See the full image on the Skybox website.

We have been hoping to see Skybox imagery making its way into Google Earth’s imagery, but we are not aware of this happening yet. It may be that Google has decided not to use Skybox imagery for Google Earth because the imagery is not as high resolution as other providers, such as Digital Globe.

Skybox for Good

October 27, 2014

Back in June 2014, Google acquired Skybox Imaging. In September, Skybox provided an impressive demonstration of their capabilities by capturing images of the Burning Man festival and producing animated gifs of its progress.

Now Skybox has announced the Skybox for Good program. Under the new program Skybox will work with non-profits to provide fresh satellite imagery where they need it. Of special interest is the fact that the images obtained via this program are being released under a Creative Commons By Attribution license (CC BY 4.0), which allows anyone to view and use the images.

Skybox has provided a map of images collected so far under the program that you can find here. You can also view it in Google Earth using this KML file.

Mining in the Appalachians – see the Skybox blog for details.

Skybox Imaging captures Burning Man

September 22, 2014

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.