ES 771 course blog

Aerial Eye Blog
ES 771 Remote Sensing
James S. Aber

May 11: The final exam is underway and due by tomorrow. No late assignments will be accepted thereafter. Final grades will be submitted by May 14 at the latest.
Note: your instructor will be out of town and away from email May 15-25; field geology begins on May 26.
May 8: The final exam is now available. Please return your answers by Tuesday, May 12. Results will be sent to students individually later next week.
May 4: We have reached the last week of the semester! Individual project reports are due at this time. The final exam will be placed online Friday--check here or course schedule for the link.
April 27: The lecture subject this week is NASA's Mission to planet Earth; see also RST Sec. 16. Continue working on individual projects. Final project reports are due next week.
Blog contribution from John Gillenwater: My daughter visited the earthquake ravaged L'Aquila area in Italy two years ago. She was shocked when she viewed pictures of the damage to the area in what was at the time a picturesque and quaint mountainous Italian village. The Science Daily has an interesting story on their website explaining how Synthetic Aperture Radar (SAR) is being used to measure the Earth's movement on that fateful day of April 6th, 2009. Go to Science Daily.

Note: this is the last week for students to submit items for the course blog.

April 20: Our subjects this week are bidirectional reflectance and ground truth. See also textbook chap. 15 and RST Sec. 13. Continue working on individual projects.
April 13: The theme of image interpretation continues this week. Read RSE 13 and 14, and browse through Geomorphology from space. Reminder: all lab exercises are due at this time; no late labs will be accepted after April 17th.
At this point, all students should determine the subject and methods for your individual project. Contact your instructor with ideas and proposals.
April 6: Another week, and another early spring snow storm swept across the central Plains region. Reading this week deals with image interpretation. See RST Sec. 2, Sec. 4 Sec. 5 and Sec. 17, as well as textbook chap. 5 & 12.
Our last lab exercise involves interpretation of vegetation for the Estonian island of Vormsi. Note: all lab exercises are due by next week!
Now is the time to consider your individual project. Contact your instructor with ideas or proposals. Nearly all past Landsat datasets are now available for free from the U.S. Geological Survey--see Landsat archive.

Mar. 30: An early spring ice/snow storm hit most of Kansas this past Friday and Saturday, which prevented attendance at the Kansas Academy of Science meeting in Topeka. Nonetheless Lida's poster on remote sensing at Cheyenne Bottoms will be displayed next to Science Hall room 110. During the ice storm, part of Emporia lost power (more below).

Your instructor lost a large blue spruce tree (>25 years old) that toppled under the weight of ice in the backyard of his home in Emporia. The roots heaved up saturated soil and the base of the trunk split open. A series of ice storms over the past few years has been exceptionally hard on trees in Kansas!

Our subject this week is the Internet--see RS/GIS online as well as textbook chap. 10 and RST Sec. 15. The lab exercise is an Internet imagery search. Note: this lab is double credit (20 points).

Blog contribution from Matt Unruh regarding the snowstorm from this past weekend: Starting March 26 and lasting through March 28, most areas in Kansas experienced an early spring winter storm. Areas of south-central and southwest kansas recorded huge snowfall amounts for the Plains, with Pratt recording 28 inches. Many areas from the Kansas-Colorado border to just west of Wichita experienced over 12 inches of snowfall. Farther east in the state, a layer of warmer air aloft was wrapped into this strong storm, causing the eastern part of Kansas to experience a mixture of rain, freezing rain, sleet, and snow.

NOAA weather snow totals for Dodge City.

Mar. 23: Welcome back from spring break! We have spent most of the semester in the "optical spectrum" of remote sensing. This week is devoted to microwaves--see space-based radar, RST 2-25 plus Sec. 8, as well as textbook chap. 9. The lab exercise likewise deals with SAR imagery.
This busy week culminates with the annual meeting of the Kansas Academy of Science, held this year at Washburn University--see KAS. One of our graduate students, Lida Buster, is presenting a poster on her M.S. thesis project dealing with remote sensing methods at Cheyenne Bottoms--see preliminary poster (2½ MB pdf file).
Mar. 13: The time to enroll for the fall '09 semester is near at hand. Your instructor will offer three courses, as noted below. ES 775 may be of particular interest for students in remote sensing.
- EB/ES/GE 351 Intro to Geospatial Analysis -- Required for the earth science major and geospatial analysis minor. Designated as a technology course for general education. Offered each fall semester.
- ES 546 Field Geomorphology -- Elective for various undergrad and graduate programs. Offered every other fall semester as a field-based course.
- ES 775 Advanced Image Processing -- Required for graduate certificate in geospatial analysis; elective for other undergrad and graduate programs. Offered every other year.

Have a nice spring break!

Mar. 9: Continue to review all the material on Landsat See also RST Sec. 6 and Sec. 7 as well as textbook chap. 7. The exercise this week is based on Ikonos imagery for Fort Leavenworth, KS (due week after spring break).
Note: your instructor will be out of town and away from email throughout spring break. Please do not send any assignments or blog contributions during the week.
Mar. 6: Mid-term exam comments have been returned to students individually. All grades were in 90s percentage range--keep up the good work!
Yesterday Emporia set a new record high temperature of 83°F, which shattered the old record of 72°F from 1991. So, in the interval of just four days, we experienced both record low and high temperatures with a swing of more than 70°F. Even by March standards, that is exceptional!
Mar. 3: March definitely came in like a lion! Heavy snow fell and record low temperatures were set at many places across the eastern and central United States, including here in Emporia. Yesterday morning dipped to 10°F, which broke the old low record of 11°F set in 2002. This just balances the relatively warm weather we had during February.
Mar. 2: The mid-term exam is underway and due tomorrow. No other assignments for this week, but past labs 1 through 4 should be completed this week.
Blog contribution from Lynn Lefebvre: This Friday, March 6, 2009, NASA is schedule to launch the Kepler Space Telescope. The purpose of this telescope is to find planets that are the size of the Earth or smaller revolving around other stars. It will monitor a section of space that features 100,000 stars similar to our sun in hopes of finding one with the same qualities of Earth. See Kepler.

Spring break is only two weeks away!

Feb. 27: The mid-term exam is now available. Please submit your answers by next Tuesday.
Feb. 23: Our subject this week is manned space photography. See also RST Sec. 12 and 2-14. Labs 1 through 4 should be completed this week.
The short month of February is nearly finished, which means it's time for the mid-term exam, which will be placed online Friday, Feb. 27. Check the course blog or schedule for a link to the exam. The exam will cover readings and lab assignments through this week.
Feb. 16: Happy President's Day! Our subject this week is remote sensing of vegetation. See also RSE chap. 11 and RST Sec. 3. Lab 3 is due this week, and students should begin working on lab 4: AVHRR vegetation. Note: AVHRR has quite different spatial resolution from Landsat imagery.
Reminder: the mid-term exam is coming up; be sure to keep up with reading and lab assignments.
Note: Your instructor will be out of town and away from email Friday and Saturday this week, Feb. 20-21, for a geological field trip into southwestern Missouri.
Feb. 11: A roster of active students is posted below. Most students are distance learning, and the number of students is relatively small because of scheduling issues (this course normally offered in fall semester).

ES 771 active students (ver. 1.0).

Feb. 9: Our subject this week is spectral signatures. See also RSE chap. 8 and RST 2-5, 2-24, Sec. 9. We continue to work with Landsat imagery for Lab 3.

Feb. 3: Blog contribution from Jesus Alvarez: On November 18, 2008 I took some oblique aerial photographs from a commercial flight going from Sacramento, California to Las Vegas Nevada. The pilot announced a low flying altitude of 17,000 ft and low precipitation along the route. The flying altitude, and the low precipitation allowed me to take a few pictures along the route on the California side (Fig. 1). Although, precipitation was low, the present moisture created some scattering observed in the oblique images. Pictures were taken with a Nikon Colpix L3. Images © J. Alvarez.

Figure 1. map showing the flight path and approximate location and angle of pictures taken. The flight path was digitized on top of MODIS imagery hosted by ESRI.
Figure 2. Mono Lake and basin. The ancient saline lake has a unique ecosystem; home to millions of brine shrimp, alkali flies, and has no fish. Current state of drought in California is present on the picture shown with salt rings around the lake.
Figure 3. Owens Valley and river. The valley is located just south of Mono basin and runs south between the Sierra Nevada on west and the White Mountains on the east. The White Mountains are visible on the left side (east). Owens River (not visible at this scale) feeds water to Los Angeles Aqueduct, which transfers water more than 400 km away to L.A. county.
Figure 4. Death Valley. The valley runs south between the Amargosa Range on the east and Panamint Range to the west. The valley’s bottom is covered with salt beds and has vegetation unique to this location with the lowest elevation registering at 292 ft (86 meters) below sea level.
Figure 5. View of the bottom of Death Valley. Salt deposits remaining from previous floods are shown next to irrigated fields.

Feb. 2: Happy Groundhog Day! Phil saw his shadow--see Groundhog.org. We are ready to move on to the Landsat satellite system. See also RSE chap. 7, as well as RST 2-15, 2-16, 2-17, and 2-20. The exercise this week involves Landsat MSS datasets for Devils Lake, ND.
Jan. 30: Blog contribution from Irene Nester: On January 15, NASA unveiled one of its two Global Hawk remotely piloted aircraft at the Dryden Flight Research Center at Edwards AFB. The Global Hawks will be used to fly instrument payloads as part of the NASA Earth Science program, which will be the first non-military use of the aircraft system. They can fly as high as 65,000 feet for over 30 hours at a time, and so will provide expanded capabilities for remote sensing and in situ atmospheric measurements compared to piloted aircraft. This article gives some background information on the Global Hawk aircraft and the program--see Global Hawk.
This NASA article describes the aircraft and some of the research projects that could be performed using the Global Hawk platform--see overview article (pdf file). The first mission, starting in just a few months, will be to collect high-altitude atmospheric data over the Pacific and Arctic. NASA Dryden is just down the road from my office at Edwards AFB.
Jan. 26: Ready for the first full week of the semester? We continue to focus on aerial photography--see photogrammetry basics as well as RSE 6 and RST Sec. Sec. 10-2. On-campus students will have a stereoscope demonstration. Lab 1 is due this week.
Students who are new to Idrisi should finish tutorials 1-1 through 1-6 this week, so you will be ready to start a course exercise using Idrisi next week.

Jan. 19: We will spend the next couple of weeks reviewing basic aerial photography. See also RSE chap. 3 & 4 as well as RST Sec. 10-1. The first lab exercises is likewise on airphotos. Note: this exercise does not require Idrisi.

Note: The ESU web server was offline for several hours Monday morning.

Clark Labs has just announced a new version of Idrisi, called Idrisi Taiga. However, we will continue using the Andes version for this course. Students ordering Idrisi for the first time, should request the Andes version; you could upgrade to Taiga later.

Jan. 12: The spring semester begins this week! On-campus students meet in SH 16 on Wednesday at one o'clock for an introduction to the course. For readings, see Intro to remote sensing and RST 2-1, 2-2, 2-3, 2-4, as well as the textbook RSE chap. 1 and 2.

As some of you already know, your instructor has conducted many kinds of remote sensing. The focus of a long-running project is Cheyenne Bottoms, a large wetland in central Kansas. Lida Buster, is now pursuing her M.S. thesis project there involving all types of satellite imagery and aerial photography. Last fall we visited and collected small-format aerial photographs.

Cheyenne Bottoms, central Kansas
Views over the Nature Conservancy marsh looking toward the northwest with the city of Hoisington in the background. Left: normal-color photograph taken with the Canon S70 camera. Right: color-infrared image taken with the Tetracam digital camera. Active, emergent vegetation appears appears pink. Kite aerial photos, Sept. 2008. For more, see remote sensing at Cheyenne Bottoms.

Cheyenne Bottoms, central Kansas
	Views over the Nature Conservancy marsh looking toward the northwest with the city of Hoisington in the background. Left: normal-color photograph taken with the Canon S70 camera. Right: color-infrared image taken with the Tetracam digital camera. Active, emergent vegetation appears appears pink. Kite aerial photos, Sept. 2008. For more, see remote sensing at Cheyenne Bottoms.

Note: All students are expected to contribute items for the aerial eye blog during the semester, as part of your course participation. Send your blog text and images to the instructor via email.

Welcome! ES 771 will be offered again in the spring semester of 2009 for on-campus and distance-learning students. Course requirements, readings, and lab exercises are the same for both on-campus and distance-learning students. The latter must have access to Idrisi Andes software, which is the primary GIS utilized for this course. Distance-learning students can obtain the "Student starter license" for $95, upon proof of student status. Note: Idrisi is for PC computers; it does not run on "Mac" computers.
For more information about course content and format, please contact the instructor, J.S. Aber, e-mail: jaber@emporia.edu.

	Figure 1. map showing the flight path and approximate location and angle of pictures taken. The flight path was digitized on top of MODIS imagery hosted by ESRI.
	Figure 2. Mono Lake and basin. The ancient saline lake has a unique ecosystem; home to millions of brine shrimp, alkali flies, and has no fish. Current state of drought in California is present on the picture shown with salt rings around the lake.
	Figure 3. Owens Valley and river. The valley is located just south of Mono basin and runs south between the Sierra Nevada on west and the White Mountains on the east. The White Mountains are visible on the left side (east). Owens River (not visible at this scale) feeds water to Los Angeles Aqueduct, which transfers water more than 400 km away to L.A. county.
	Figure 4. Death Valley. The valley runs south between the Amargosa Range on the east and Panamint Range to the west. The valley’s bottom is covered with salt beds and has vegetation unique to this location with the lowest elevation registering at 292 ft (86 meters) below sea level.
	Figure 5. View of the bottom of Death Valley. Salt deposits remaining from previous floods are shown next to irrigated fields.