Calling Willem and other bush trackers
Submitted: Sunday, Mar 01, 2009 at 21:47
ThreadID:
66426
Views:
3057
Replies:
8
FollowUps:
7
This Thread has been Archived
Member - Mal and Di (SA)
A South African friend showed me an interesting thing on Google Earth today.
Go to S 26 30 36.77 and E 20 35 35.59 and tell me what animal made these tracks.
It shows what is available on this site but they do not let us have access to.
Scary!
M.
Reply By: Cruiser .- Sunday, Mar 01, 2009 at 22:13
Sunday, Mar 01, 2009 at 22:13
M,
Can you please give me a clue as to what I am looking for.
I cant see any obvious animal tracks on GE at that location.
Cheers,
Cruiser
AnswerID:
351786
Follow Up By: Member - Mal and Di (SA) - Sunday, Mar 01, 2009 at 22:21
Sunday, Mar 01, 2009 at 22:21
Hmmm,
Where I am looking the resolution is pin sharp. It says I am looking down from less that 20 mtrs. The area appears to be about 20mtrs long by about 30. It was explained that the "government" have that resolution but the rest of us put up with a "film" over the surface that allows us to only go into about 400mtrs before we lose clarity.
Hope this make some sense cos what I am looking at is animal and lizard tracks.
M.
FollowupID:
619992
Follow Up By: eerfree - Sunday, Mar 01, 2009 at 23:09
Sunday, Mar 01, 2009 at 23:09
Mal and Di
If you GE Uluru you can now zoom in to actually see the chain up the track and if you have time to track along the chain you can pick the tourists.
Bob
FollowupID:
619998
Reply By: Member - Fourplayfull - Sunday, Mar 01, 2009 at 22:38
Sunday, Mar 01, 2009 at 22:38
Willem is in mourning - happened to meet he & Judith in
Clare this afternoon . Apparently he is "patiently" wating for Mr. Telstra to repair a connection problem .
Cheers
John
AnswerID:
351790
Follow Up By: Sand Man (SA) - Monday, Mar 02, 2009 at 08:48
Monday, Mar 02, 2009 at 08:48
Well, good luck to Willem is all I can say.
I have a fault on
my home line which stopped me from receiving ADSL for 5 months, after enjoying the cost effective service for a couple of years.
After unsuccessful multiple calls to my ISP (Telstra are their service provider) and following up with the Communications Ombudsman in an attempt to "force" Telstra to react and repair the fault, I run out of patience. The voice service was OK.
Telstra won, I had to subscribe to their cable broadband service.
Bloody mongrels:-(
FollowupID:
620017
Reply By: Member - Doug T (NT) - Sunday, Mar 01, 2009 at 23:57
Sunday, Mar 01, 2009 at 23:57
Never mind the tracks...the zoom is amazing, best I've seen on yet on GE.
.
AnswerID:
351805
Reply By: Member - Doug T (NT) - Monday, Mar 02, 2009 at 00:10
Monday, Mar 02, 2009 at 00:10
Having a second look at that... if you go 31.24m NE of the original Lat/Long it looks like an adult and a kid has walked there ,
.
AnswerID:
351807
Follow Up By: cityslicker - Monday, Mar 02, 2009 at 09:26
Monday, Mar 02, 2009 at 09:26
On the eastern side of the dune with those footprints is a small tree throwing a bit of shade. I reckon someone is sitting in the shade, but it could be an overactive imagination :-)
FollowupID:
620020
Reply By: Bob of KAOS - Monday, Mar 02, 2009 at 05:22
Monday, Mar 02, 2009 at 05:22
Fantastic resolution.
I can't wait until the whole if Oz is available in that level of detail.
BTW it looks as if RSA has copied the
Simpson Desert.
Bob
AnswerID:
351813
Reply By: age - Monday, Mar 02, 2009 at 07:51
Monday, Mar 02, 2009 at 07:51
Have a look at this site, especially the smiling man KMZ file to show the starkness and capability of resolution
GE Link
Cheers
A
AnswerID:
351817
Follow Up By: MrBitchi (QLD) - Monday, Mar 02, 2009 at 08:57
Monday, Mar 02, 2009 at 08:57
That's an overlayed picture, probably taken from an aircraft or helicopter. It's not a satellite picture as all around it is nothing....
FollowupID:
620019
Reply By: Member - Chris & Sue (QLD) - Monday, Mar 02, 2009 at 15:29
Monday, Mar 02, 2009 at 15:29
G'day Mal,
Conspiracy theories to the contrary, I don't think this is from a satellite. It (and the link provided by 'age' of the Arabs in the desert) are aerial photos. In the Arab shot, most of them are looking at the camera. You don't generally stand around at a
waterhole looking up at a satellite in the daytime (
well, I don't, anyway). :-)
Yes, the owners of the satellites get to see more than your average Fred Dagg does on Google Earth, but I'll think you'll find there are physical limitations to the optical resolution of space based cameras.
As a rough example, a 4m diameter telescope at about 100km altitude (and I suspect their higher than that but we're keeping this simple) has a resolution, under perfect atmospheric conditions, of about 10cms. The resolution of those locations on GE are way below that.
The question in my mind is "Why those 2 locations, both in the middle of nowhere"?
Cheers,
Chris
AnswerID:
351863
Follow Up By: Member - Chris & Sue (QLD) - Monday, Mar 02, 2009 at 15:33
Monday, Mar 02, 2009 at 15:33
The 'rough example' paragraph should have read:-
As a rough example, a 4m diameter telescope at about 100km altitude (and I suspect they're higher than that but we're keeping this simple) has a resolution, under perfect atmospheric conditions, of about 10cms. The resolution of those locations on GE are way below that. For the terminally nerdish, the angular resolution for a telescope (which is what a spy satellite is, essentially something like the Hubble Space Telescope pointed down) is approximated by:
R = ?/D
where R is the angular resolution in radians, ? is the wavelength of light that is being imaged, and D is the diameter of the telescope.
(Parts pinched from
Optical Equation)
Cheers,
Chris
FollowupID:
620045
Follow Up By: Member - Willie , Sydney. - Monday, Mar 02, 2009 at 22:47
Monday, Mar 02, 2009 at 22:47
Yes Chris, that was the first thing that I thought . Why this incredible resolution on a tiny patch of desert. Maybe they were just testing a camera or some other piece of equipment.
Mal and Di (SA) - thanks for the post - very interesting.
Willie.
FollowupID:
620131
Reply By: Willem - Wednesday, Mar 04, 2009 at 13:15
Wednesday, Mar 04, 2009 at 13:15
Hi Mal
I am back online again.
My Google won't let me get close enought to see the tracks.
In that particular area you get Desert Lions and Desert Elephants.
The area used to be known as the Kalahari Gemsbok National Park. Not sure if the name is still the same. It is quite a scenic game reserve witha variety of desert dwellers.
Cheers
AnswerID:
352150