Odd find on Google Maps

[DyerWolf]

Link (http://maps.google.com/maps?hl=en&um=1&ie=UTF-8&q=hotel&near=Chico,+CA&fb=1&sa=X&oi=local_group&resnum=1&ct=image)

If the link works, just off the track located on the Chico State campus is (what looks like) an intentional smudge or erasure of the map. Zoom straight in to see the track and smudge...

Anyone seen anything like this before?

[mike alexander]

My guess is that they used a photo in the mosaic that had some high cloud in it.

Either that or Vice President Cheney was there that day.

[farmerjumperdon]

Men In Black.

[schlaugh]

Looks like scanned hard copy and someone has ripped off a chunk of paper. Same thing in Google Earth for that section.

You know the old saying; garbage in....

[Trebuchet]

My guess is that they used a photo in the mosaic that had some high cloud in it.

Either that or Vice President Cheney was there that day.

I saw the clouds too, but look closer to the track, just at the south end. Like Schlaugh says, it looks like torn paper.

[GeorgeLeRoyTirebiter]

I'm no expert, but to me it looks like the "bleed" from an overloaded CCD. I would guess that it's a building with a very reflective roof.

[ABR.]

My guess is that they used a photo in the mosaic that had some high cloud in it.

Either that or Vice President Cheney was there that day.

Closer than you think, Mike. That's my office being protected from the likes of, well, anyone reading this!

Oh, okay. I'm in a building elsewhere on campus. The big smudged area looks like Yolo Hall which has lots of solar panels on its roof. I suspect that is the cause of the distortion. You can see similar, if smaller, distortions on the tops of other buildings with solar panels.

[mike alexander]

Ah, I see it. Yes, I Googled that. Look at Acker Gym just to the upper left, it's washed out as well. The arrays on Yolo Hall must have given a specular reflection back to the sat.

And wouldn't Specular Reflection be a good name for a race horse?

[ABR.]

And wouldn't Specular Reflection be a good name for a race horse?

I think there was a horse once named Spectacular Diffraction. I don't think he ever won a race since he always scattered as he left the starting gate.

[ravens_cry]

I found something weirder, as I was exploring Greenland. By the way, it isn't green.
Anyway, I found this,
http://maps.google.ca/maps?f=q&hl=en&geocode=&q=Greenland&ie=UTF8&ll=68.934711,-42.60498&spn=0.819386,3.735352&t=h&z=8

[mike alexander]

If the proportions are 1:3:9, we might be in trouble.

[Van Rijn]

It doesn't appear to be quite symmetrical, so no fallen monolith this time.

[mike alexander]

Could be a perspective thing.

For that matter, what's that 75km long thing partly buried about 200km NNE of the black bar?

[Van Rijn]

For that matter, what's that 75km long thing partly buried about 200km NNE of the black bar?

Not sure, but I did see a bit of green on it when I zoomed in. It must be a plant.

[DyerWolf]

Argh! You beat me to it! (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cWnmCu3U09w&feature=related)


ABR. - I thought I was the only one on this board related to Chico State (although as an alum, rather than faculty or staff...).

Glad to make your (virtual) acquaintance!

[SeanF]

If the proportions are 1:3:9, we might be in trouble.
You misspelled "4".

[Neverfly]

Since the link doesn't take you right to it- on sat- here's an easy access picture of what was discussed...

[NEOWatcher]

Re Yolo:
Do they do crystal growth experiments in that building? If so, they seem to be rather successful. :lol:
Or is there some sports joke I can make regarding crystal meth? :whistle:

Re Greenland:
Big black asphalt landing strip for a plane with one heck of a large wingspan? :shifty:

[ABR.]

And it's good to meet you, too, DyerWolf. I think there is at least one other Chico Stater hanging around here, if I remember correctly.


Re Yolo:
Do they do crystal growth experiments in that building? If so, they seem to be rather successful. :lol:
Or is there some sports joke I can make regarding crystal meth? :whistle:

Re Greenland:
Big black asphalt landing strip for a plane with one heck of a large wingspan? :shifty:

The crystal meth labs are mostly up in the hills which has forced the Forest Service to block access on many small roads. There was also a meth lab found recently in the parking lot of a nearby casino.

Regarding the pictures of the "big landing strip" in Greenland, wasn't there a thread recently about a secret airbase in Greenland? I'm just saying...

[DyerWolf]

And it's good to meet you, too, DyerWolf. I think there is at least one other Chico Stater hanging around here, if I remember correctly.



The crystal meth labs are mostly up in the hills which has forced the Forest Service to block access on many small roads. There was also a meth lab found recently in the parking lot of a nearby casino.



Oroville (a nearby town) once had the highest per-capita murder rate of the entire United States as I recall, due to the meth industry.

Ahh, I had almost forgotten the joys of four-wheeling around the foothills near Chico using forestry maps as a guide while dodging pit-bulls and spring-guns. I think it was worth the risk, considering there are a lot of cool things to see, and some great fishing in the back woods. -- It does pay to be aware of your surroundings, and cautious of some of the folks you meet however. I remember one interesting adventure after I broke a wheel on my truck and my roommate and I had to hike out: We got picked up by two guys in a battered 1970's era Ford Fiesta with no brakes or seats. To make up for the lack of seats they had filled the back with several large trashbags full of the fragrant leaves of some carefully cultivated plants, which they had just harvested. They let us out a mile from a gas station and encouraged us not to remember too many details... Thankfully they had both sampled their product and were feeling very peacible...

I'm thinking a lot about Chico lately, considering I will be coming back to town for a friend's wedding in July.

How much has it changed in the last 15 years?

[mugaliens]

Haven't you heard? That's Area 52...

[ABR.]

I'm thinking a lot about Chico lately, considering I will be coming back to town for a friend's wedding in July.

How much has it changed in the last 15 years?

I've only been here for seven years, so I don't know about any changes prior to that. One thing that has not changed: Chico in July = HOT! We've hit the century mark once already this year.

By the way, the meth lab found in the casino parking lot...it was in Oroville.

[chrissy]

I found something weirder, as I was exploring Greenland. By the way, it isn't green.
Anyway, I found this,
http://maps.google.ca/maps?f=q&hl=en&geocode=&q=Greenland&ie=UTF8&ll=68.934711,-42.60498&spn=0.819386,3.735352&t=h&z=8

Ah thats where my dogs stick went too!

[CJSF]

Looking at the image from the original post:

I work with this type of data quite a lot (from the QuickBird 2 satellite). This is a good example of what we call "flares" or somewhat affectionately "image icicles". Normally they seem to extend from north to south, regardless of how the image was collected. Although we've never had confirmation from DigitalGlobe, we believe they are an artifact of some pre-processing of the data after collection and transmission to the ground. I've not seen east to west oriented ones like that, so this is interesting in that respect.

Another interesting thing is that I've always assumed that the color images from DigitalGlobe on Google Earth/Maps were just from the multispectral CCD. The nominal pixel size or instantaneous field of view (IFOV) for that is 2.4 meters (it varies, of course). But I see here, based on the subtle and fuzzy "details" visible inside the flare areas that this is a pan-sharpened image, at degraded resolution. There are 2 collectors on the QuickBird satellite. The above mentioned multispectral sensor and a panchormatic ("black and white" or "grayscale") sensor. The multispectral sensor collects data at ~2.4 meters per pixel in 4 bands or "colors": blue, green, red and near infrared. The 3 visible bands are used here. The other sensor collects data at ~60 centimeters per pixel (0.6 meters) in one continuous band ranging from green through the near infrared. Using any one of various algorithms, data from these two CCD cameras can be merged or "fused" to make an image with the detail of the 60cm panchromatic data and the color of the 2.4m multispectral data.

In this case, either the CCDs in the panchromatic data are oversaturated and directly bled into adjacent pixels, or some pre-processing step bled the saturated pixels along adjacent pixels in the east-west and north-south directions. There was little or no such bleed in the multispectral data. When they were fused, the result is the odd, party obscured spiky looking artifact.

Sorry to be long-winded, but it was interesting to me that in some cases at least, Google is using reduced-resolution versions of the DigitalGlobe imagery.

Yay for remote sensing!

CJSF

[CJSF]

I found something weirder, as I was exploring Greenland. By the way, it isn't green.
Anyway, I found this,
http://maps.google.ca/maps?f=q&hl=en&geocode=&q=Greenland&ie=UTF8&ll=68.934711,-42.60498&spn=0.819386,3.735352&t=h&z=8

That's just a gap among images in the mosaic.

CJSF

[mike alexander]

That's just a gap among images in the mosaic.

Mist County, Greenland.

[DyerWolf]

I've only been here for seven years, so I don't know about any changes prior to that. One thing that has not changed: Chico in July = HOT! We've hit the century mark once already this year.

By the way, the meth lab found in the casino parking lot...it was in Oroville.

I had forgotten how hot the summers were there. Thanks for the reminder!

[Tobin Dax]

You misspelled "4".:lol: Another item on the "I can never use this as a response to a student, but I want to" list.

[tommac]

Link (http://maps.google.com/maps?hl=en&um=1&ie=UTF-8&q=hotel&near=Chico,+CA&fb=1&sa=X&oi=local_group&resnum=1&ct=image)

If the link works, just off the track located on the Chico State campus is (what looks like) an intentional smudge or erasure of the map. Zoom straight in to see the track and smudge...

Anyone seen anything like this before?

Reflection off a solar pannel?