Another cool Earth at night photo. Includes fires, gas flares and fishing fleets!

[Jayems]

Farkers may have already seen this, but I think it's worth posting over here too.

http://incredimazing.com/page/Earth_at_Night-686

[SarichFan]

That's cool. I've got a similar wallpaper that updates cloud formations:

It's called Desktop earth.

[peter12]

Does anybody else have any cool photos? I need a new background.

[Dion]

Thanks James!

A new pic for my desktop.

[FlamesKickAss]

just click through that website, some really good ones

[HotHotHeat]

It's amazing how dark the most populated regions of the world are.

[Jayems]

Originally Posted by FlamesKickAss

just click through that website, some really good ones

"New Jersey Devil"

[Dan02]

I have a similar shot for my desktop. Except its just lights at night. It's awesome i can see the town i used to live in up north even though there were only 500ish people living there, it's also cool to see how there are towns built up all around the highways through places like canada usa and russia in particular.

The one I have also has much sharper resolution so you can see alot more details.

[Jayems]

Originally Posted by Dan02

I have a similar shot for my desktop. Except its just lights at night. It's awesome i can see the town i used to live in up north even though there were only 500ish people living there, it's also cool to see how there are towns built up all around the highways through places like canada usa and russia in particular.

The one I have also has much sharper resolution so you can see alot more details.

Can you post it up to allyoucanupload.com? (Don't resize)

[Dan02]

Originally Posted by Jayems

Can you post it up to allyoucanupload.com? (Don't resize)

mines already been resized to fit my desktop but i'll see what i can do.

found the link to the original, after much googling i found it listed on the actual picture on my desktop.

http://antwrp.gsfc.nasa.gov/apod/ima...2_dmsp_big.jpg

your browser probably default resizes it to fit. Looks even better full sized.

The red circle in this second one is where i used to live.

http://aycu28.webshots.com/image/481...1420421_rs.jpg

[worth]

And what city is that? Looks a litle NE of Whitehorse and NW of Yellowknife, but not as far north as Inuvik.

[Kidder]

I'm quite surprised how noticable the Calgary, Red Deer, Edmonton strip is.

Calgary looks to be one of the biggest cluster of light in the non-coastal western North America. Although that makes sense when you hear it's the third biggest city in terms of area in NA (yes?).

Yay urban sprawl!

[simonsays]

Originally Posted by Dan02

mines already been resized to fit my desktop but i'll see what i can do.

found the link to the original, after much googling i found it listed on the actual picture on my desktop.

http://antwrp.gsfc.nasa.gov/apod/ima...2_dmsp_big.jpg

I had this exact same desktop for the last 6 months or so. Terrific image.

[mykalberta]

What exactly are natural gas flares? I obviously dont know what they are because I would have assumed some to exist in North America.

[SaskaBushFire]

Took me a second to realize those were hockey pucks.. lol

[Bring_Back_Shantz]

Originally Posted by mykalberta

What exactly are natural gas flares? I obviously dont know what they are because I would have assumed some to exist in North America.

Nope, we've got a market for natural gas here so we don't flare it like they do in places like the middle east.
Sure there is some flaring (well tests, small remote oil wells, etc) but there is less and less going on.
Meanwhile in Saudi Arabia, they flare huge ammounts of it, becasue there is a market for the oil, but not for the gas that comes with it.

[Flames_18_22_12]

Look at South Korea in comparison to North Korea. Its almost a straight line where the lights just go out.

Edit: Another interesting thing is if you draw a line vertically down the middle of the United States (at Dallas), to the east you have a high density of lighting while west of that it is much less dense. Now I know that the east has a high density of population compared to the west, however I wouldn't have guessed the change would be that sudden.

[Dan02]

Originally Posted by worth

And what city is that? Looks a litle NE of Whitehorse and NW of Yellowknife, but not as far north as Inuvik.

city? when i lived there it graduated from village to officially a town.

only there because of the oil

http://www.normanwells.com/

although i must say, the fishing up there is quite incredible if that's your sort of thing.

[MaDMaN_26]

This is a fake photo... you all do realize that right? I'ts not that amazing... the lights are based on what a digital artist thought they should be.

[Jayems]

Originally Posted by MaDMaN_26

This is a fake photo... you all do realize that right? I'ts not that amazing... the lights are based on what a digital artist thought they should be.

Maps have long been used to imagine events occurring on the ground from an airborne perspective. Satellites now record a similar view of actual events for scientists to study. The Defense Meteorological Satellite Program (DMSP) currently operates four satellites carrying the Operational Linescan System (OLS) in low-altitude polar orbits. Three of these satellites record nighttime data. The DMSP-OLS has a unique capability to detect low levels of visible-near infrared (VNIR) radiance at night. With the OLS "VIS" band data it is possible to detect clouds illuminated by moonlight, plus lights from cities, towns, industrial sites, gas flares, and ephemeral events such as fires and lightning-illuminated clouds. The Nighttime Lights of the World data set is compiled from the October 1994 - March 1995 DMSP nighttime data collected when moonlight was low. Using the OLS thermal infrared band, areas containing clouds were removed and the remaining area used in the time series.

http://www.ngdc.noaa.gov/dmsp/night_light_posters.html