This year marks the 50th anniversary of the launch of the first Landsat satellite (July 23, 1972). To celebrate fifty years of earth observation, IowaView will be posting various images and gif documenting Landsat in Iowa and around the world. Check back regularly for new images and articles. #TimeLapseTuesday #ThrowbackThursday
The Ladies of Landsat have shared some great USGS case study videos showcasing the paths women and girls can take to become remote sensing scientists. Three scientists stories are highlighted: Jill Deines, Africa Ixmucane Flores-Anderson, and Nikki Tulley. Read more and enjoy their stories below:
Nikki Tulley: Speaking a New Language of Landsat – Nikki grew up in the Navajo Nation without running water in her household. As PhD student at University of Arizona and Indigenous scientist, she uses Landsat to track drought conditions in her home community.
This Image was captured with Landsat 9 on December 12, 2021. Notice the snow dusting in the north part of the image.
Yesterday the United State Geological Survey (USGS) released the first 38,000 scenes collected from the recently launch Landsat 9 (September 2021). After much calibration and quality assurance here are some of the first clear images of Iowa. For more images visit USGS Earth Explorer: https://earthexplorer.usgs.gov/.
The images above illustrate the differences in scale between 24K, 100K, and 250K USGS Topographic Maps. Notice the change in level of detail.
The ISU GIS Facility Manager, Robin McNeely, recently gave a presentation for the Iowa Geographic Information Council Lunch and Learn series about new data products that the GIS Facility has been producing. Here is a link to watch Robin’s presentation, which begins around (29:20): https://iastate.webex.com/iastate/ldr.php?RCID=64ed815f6c8eaa323fa5c88cc36d7d60.
She highlighted the completion of the Historic United States Geological Survey (USGS) 24,000 Topographic Map series ArcGIS service. The 24k historic topo maps were downloaded from the USGS TopoVieweras georeferenced .tif files, inventoried and put into an ArcGIS mosaic dataset. The dates for those maps for Iowa are 1949-1986. They are currently in a published map service on ortho.gis.iastate.edu and as a layer in the Iowa Geographic Map Server (see map below.)
USGS just released a Story Map summary wrapping up 2021 and the exciting developments with the Landsat mission including a newly launched satellite and 10 million scenes in the archive mark two high points.
The Iowa Orthoserver (also known as the Iowa Geographic Map Server) has a variety of resources available to enhance and serve users. Today we are highlighting the Aerial Photo Dates layer. This layer allows users to determine the date of a particular image.
Open the Iowa Geographic Map Server ArcGIS Web App.
Select the first icon – Choose Map Layers (looks like 3 stacked sheets of paper.)
Scroll down to the Iowa – Aerial Photo Dates layer and then check the box to turn it on.
Expand the menu by clicking the tiny gray arrow to the left of the check box.
Now turn on whichever year of flight date you wish to use (the orange areas symbolize the flight paths and within them will appear the flight dates.)
*Please note* for some of the older imagery years (example 1930s, 1950s, etc.), you need to be zoomed in for the flight dates to appear. Zoom into an area of interest, the flight patterns and dates will be shown.
The statewide 2021 NAIP flight date layer is not yet available. This will be released when the layer is available. If you would like information regarding specific areas for the 2021 flight, please contact Amy Logan.
When: September 21st, 2021 8:00 PM through 9:00 PM (Eastern)
Attention educators and mappers! Join TeachOSM Tuesday, 21 September for our first ever ‘back-to-school’ night. We’re offering an informal open house to introduce our programming. This hour-long event will feature brief demos from teachers and mappers to enable you to:
Find out more about how you can put OSM in your school
Learn how to take advantage of our Map-Alongs and other educational programming
Find out how you can get support open mapping education in your community
A year ago today a derecho, a series of thunderstorms with hurricane-like winds and heavy rains, struck Iowa with very little warning. The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) put together a multi-media story map to tell the tale of this eventful day. Hundreds of thousands of trees were lost or damaged. Homes and buildings were destroyed. Many people lost power for days or even weeks.
Have you visited the NASA’s Earth Observatory? It is a NASA website that helps make satellite imagery relevant to the general public and it is a great place to find images for presentations or use in the classroom. In August 2020, the Earth Observatory featured a comparison of satellite images from July 2020 and August 2020 to show the extent of the derecho damage on Iowa cropland.