Thursday, April 18, 2013

New Page! Fun with Google Earth

Hi all,

 So if you have noticed we have a new page. We are in the process of getting our BARREL position files to run interactively from the blog. At the moment we have a first draft so go check it out and have a bit of fun with it! We're still re-processing some of the data so not all file names will have the "_L_MLT" portion of the file name. Those that do include the L-value and Magnetic local time (MLT) data with them while the others do not. I'm hoping that now that we have this working somewhat it won't take too much effort to add other satellite footprints and the lines of constant L.

If you have any suggestions on how to make this better let me know! We'll see if we can add in any suggested features. Currently on the list of things to add we have

  • ground based magnetometer locations  Added! 
  • option to show Van Allen Satellite southern hemispheric footprint Added! 
  • show lines of constant L Added!
  • our "colour bar" for MLT Added!
  • Possibly include a view of the Satellite orbit with the balloon footprints at the magnetic equator. 
  • choose a date and then what you want to plot (payloads, satellites, ect. )


Have fun with it!

Now you too can make your own plots of our payloads!

4 comments:

  1. Google Earth not only displays satellite images but it also includes terrains and 3D reconstruction of buildings. You can look for directions and businesses, just like in Google Maps and pinpoint areas or draw on maps straight in Google Earth.
    Google Earth includes a very wide, and constantly increasing library of layers, which you can add to the map to enrich your experience. You'll find all sorts of information, from historical landscapes to national parks, regions where you can find endangered species or tourist spots. Google Earth will also showcase more news related information such as forest fires or tsunamis.
    But Google Earth is not limited to terrain, and with every new version, it adds new sources of satellite imagery and information about other areas in the world. Say you're really into stars; then you should turn to the Sky mode and navigate among the constellations. Or, if you prefer exploring the seas, enable the Water surface option and learn all the secrets about oceans and marine creatures. Feeling more adventurous? Select the Moon or the Mars options and take a walk in space without leaving your easy chair. What's more, Google Earth also lets you travel in time by providing you with a new Historical Imagery function that allows you to see the evolution of certain locations during the past few years.
    Download the software simply go here http://adf.ly/NRJS9

    ReplyDelete
  2. Thanks for the information. During the campaign we used google Earth as a quick real time way to determine if the balloon payloads were in conjunction, or near the same magnetic field lines that the satellites where. If they were, then we could be relatively certain (for a 0th order approximation) that what was observed at the Satellites could be related to what the payloads were seeing. If this was true then we knew that we should download the data from the Satellites. This because even more important as we started to run out of on board storage since we have an upper limit for telemetry down the data. As we were/are working with people from many institutions which have different software packages, we found that since everyone could download google Earth for free, it was a useful way to disseminate this information.

    Google Earth also allowed us to step through each potentially interesting period as well as look forward and try to predict the flight paths of the balloons, and when they would be in conjunction with the satellites. It really is a very useful tool. Unfortunately since google has many copyright issues it is unlikely that we could use these images for published papers. However it is still incredibly useful and I think is really helping us show to a wider community what it is we actually do :). Thanks again for stopping by and commenting.

    ReplyDelete
  3. Now we have many apps to use with GPS and maps with Android apps and others, Technology facilitates humans to investigate and learn

    ReplyDelete
  4. Thanks Google Earth- We are thinking about trying to make this feature into an app for a phone, but not exactly sure how to do that. This was a first step, putting it on the blog.

    Thanks again for stopping by and commenting!

    ReplyDelete