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How to Download Live Images from Government Weather Satellites (2018)

3dprintscanner 7y ago
You can also download fairly up-to-date ESA imagery and radar images from https://scihub.copernicus.eu/ https://scihub.copernicus.eu/. This covers a fairly large area worldwide.
freehunter 7y ago
Those pictures look... pretty rough. I know the author says you can clean them up in software but doesn't provide any pictures of the images they've received cleaned up in the software they've recommended. Is this actually worthwhile for anything other than just hacking for fun? Or is getting any useful data from this going to be a full-time job by itself?
- brootstrap 7y ago
  Personally i would say this is just a fun project and novelty factor of receiving a transmission from the satellite. If you actually want to get your hands on weather data and do useful stuff with it let NOAA do the heavy lifting. I can wager that most of us here probably dont want to write the code to seam together satellite images and clean them up. However i wont stop anyone, have at it friends.
- xupybd 7y ago
  To get better images you're going to need a better antenna. But if you have a use for the images is really up to you.
- themodelplumber 7y ago
  I appreciated these images during recent wildfires. They answered questions like, "is this smoke from something local or is it more likely from that fire that's 50 miles away," and you could also compare sets of imagery yourself which was kind of empowering.
- exikyut 7y ago
  Answering your question with a question... where do super-amazing-ultra-resolution satellite images come from, and can I download those using commodity/off-the-shelf equipment?
- anilakar 7y ago
  Lets put it this way: If you were doing this for something else than fun, you'd invest a bit more than ten bucks for a radio receiver USB dongle and some scrap metal wire.
- blantonl 7y ago
  If we ever got ourselves into a SHTF scenario (global thermonuclear war etc), the lack of local internet access could be a problem. The satellites you are receiving in this article are the NOAA-XX ones, which are completely self-contained and literally sweep the earth in Orbit broadcasting exactly what they see directly below them. This could function as a completely self contained weather forecasting tool only requiring solar power and no government based ground infrastructure to support. Current satellite pictures that you are used to seeing from the news and weather forecasting agencies use the GOES satellites, which actually rely on ground based infrastructure to process and then rebroadcast the products that are disseminated from them. (Think: downlink-process-uplink and then downlink to consumers). Provided in a SHTF scenario that the satellites weren't taken out - they are completely self contained and just broadcast regardless of what happens on the earth.
- lllr_finger 7y ago
  I chase storms in my free time, and there are still a lot of areas in the US where Internet connectivity is poor or non-existent. I had an idea for an e-ink powered device that pulled down satellite images like this, but I never got very far with it. Satellite data tells you pretty much everything you would need to forecast at a basic level, especially with the derived soundings.
AuzzieStig 7y ago
A good video regarding this topic https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cjClTnZ4Xh4 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cjClTnZ4Xh4
lwneal 7y ago
The article describes how to receive weather imagery directly from satellites using an SDR. It's a fun project, and surely useful if you don't have Internet access. However, if you do have Internet access, GOES-16 [1] provides a beautiful full-color live feed of the Earth which you can easily download with wget/curl. For example, paste the following: wget $(curl -s https://www.star.nesdis.noaa.gov/GOES/fulldisk.php?sat=G16 | grep -o -e 'https://cdn.star.nesdis.noaa.gov/GOES16/ABI/FD/GEOCOLOR/[0-9]*_GOES16-ABI-FD-GEOCOLOR-1808x1808.jpg' | head -1) -O earth.jpg && open earth.jpg It's fun to use as a live-updating wallpaper or background. [1] https://www.star.nesdis.noaa.gov/GOES/fulldisk.php?sat=G16 https://www.star.nesdis.noaa.gov/GOES/fulldisk.php?sat=G16
- shrike 7y ago
  Found https://github.com/cameronleger/goes16-background https://github.com/cameronleger/goes16-background, works well.
  - app4soft 7y ago
    Good, but it is Python-way ;)
- app4soft 7y ago
  The only fix to your script is to use `display` command to open image (NOT `open` command).[0] wget $(curl -s https://www.star.nesdis.noaa.gov/GOES/fulldisk.php?sat=G16 | grep -o -e 'https://cdn.star.nesdis.noaa.gov/GOES16/ABI/FD/GEOCOLOR/[0-9]*_GOES16-ABI-FD-GEOCOLOR-1808x1808.jpg' | head -1) -O earth.jpg && display earth.jpg And here is my resulted preview.[1] UPD: Found that this CDN[2] also has static links to latest image, so script could be much more simplified by dropping `curl` and `grep`: wget -c https://cdn.star.nesdis.noaa.gov/GOES16/ABI/FD/GEOCOLOR/1808x1808.jpg -O earth.jpg && display earth.jpg [0] https://www.computerhope.com/issues/ch001720.htm https://www.computerhope.com/issues/ch001720.htm [1] https://i.imgur.com/gFaVvhz.jpg https://i.imgur.com/gFaVvhz.jpg [2] https://cdn.star.nesdis.noaa.gov/GOES16/ABI/FD/GEOCOLOR/ https://cdn.star.nesdis.noaa.gov/GOES16/ABI/FD/GEOCOLOR/
  - 7y ago
Mountain_Skies 7y ago
The February 1985 issue of Rainbow Magazine had an program listing for Wefax, which made it possible for owners of the TRS-80 Color Computer to receive weather satellite images using a shortwave radio. This looks like a more advanced version of the same thing. Back then it blew my mind that a home computer could do such a thing. I didn't have a shortwave radio so I never was able to make use of the program. Will have to play with this one, if for no other reason than to fulfill my childhood fantasy of having an at home satellite receiving station. Won't the ladies at my high school reunion be impressed! (Probably not)
- blantonl 7y ago
  The Wefax pictures you could/can receive over shortwave radio are retransmitted from the satellites over shortwave for Marine interests.
jcims 7y ago
One of the most interesting parts of this exercise to me is seeing the Doppler effect in the frequency of LEO satellites as they pass overhead. E.g.: https://www.reddit.com/r/RTLSDR/comments/7qalaj/visualizing_satellite_doppler_shift/ https://www.reddit.com/r/RTLSDR/comments/7qalaj/visualizing_... It’s also fun to build the absolute sketchiest MacGyver antenna you can imagine and use it to pick up a signal from space.
killjoywashere 7y ago
oh, man, I remember doing this in high school in the 90s (our system was run by one of my favorite teachers. He narrowly missed the Challenger explosion as a finalist of McAuliffe's spot). These satellites just rain information down to Earth. I think we used an HPUX system to ingest and visualize data from the antenna. Definitely something Unixy.
stebann 7y ago
Cool hacking project.
emmelaich 7y ago
Or install the McIDAS suite: https://www.ssec.wisc.edu/mcidas/ https://www.ssec.wisc.edu/mcidas/
donmb 7y ago
Might sound as a stupid question but is it legal to consume and use the images?
- jbotz 7y ago
  Yes. At least in the case of American satellites. Basically all information produced by the US (federal) Government that is not classified is in the public domain.[1] There are all sorts of weaselly ways that companies and in some cases government agencies try to limit this (for example, West Publishing, the company that publishes laws has copyright on the page numbers which are needed to reference those laws[2]), but in this case we're talking about raw data, transmitted on public airwaves, so there is really no question that it's in the public domain. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Copyright_status_of_works_by_the_federal_government_of_the_United_States https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Copyright_status_of_works_by_t... [2] https://www.wired.com/1994/05/the-law/ https://www.wired.com/1994/05/the-law/

You can also download fairly up-to-date ESA imagery and radar images from https://scihub.copernicus.eu/ https://scihub.copernicus.eu/. This covers a fairly large area worldwide.

freehunter 7y ago

Those pictures look... pretty rough. I know the author says you can clean them up in software but doesn't provide any pictures of the images they've received cleaned up in the software they've recommended. Is this actually worthwhile for anything other than just hacking for fun? Or is getting any useful data from this going to be a full-time job by itself?

brootstrap 7y ago
Personally i would say this is just a fun project and novelty factor of receiving a transmission from the satellite. If you actually want to get your hands on weather data and do useful stuff with it let NOAA do the heavy lifting. I can wager that most of us here probably dont want to write the code to seam together satellite images and clean them up. However i wont stop anyone, have at it friends.
xupybd 7y ago
To get better images you're going to need a better antenna. But if you have a use for the images is really up to you.
themodelplumber 7y ago
I appreciated these images during recent wildfires. They answered questions like, "is this smoke from something local or is it more likely from that fire that's 50 miles away," and you could also compare sets of imagery yourself which was kind of empowering.
exikyut 7y ago
Answering your question with a question... where do super-amazing-ultra-resolution satellite images come from, and can I download those using commodity/off-the-shelf equipment?
anilakar 7y ago
Lets put it this way: If you were doing this for something else than fun, you'd invest a bit more than ten bucks for a radio receiver USB dongle and some scrap metal wire.
blantonl 7y ago
If we ever got ourselves into a SHTF scenario (global thermonuclear war etc), the lack of local internet access could be a problem. The satellites you are receiving in this article are the NOAA-XX ones, which are completely self-contained and literally sweep the earth in Orbit broadcasting exactly what they see directly below them. This could function as a completely self contained weather forecasting tool only requiring solar power and no government based ground infrastructure to support. Current satellite pictures that you are used to seeing from the news and weather forecasting agencies use the GOES satellites, which actually rely on ground based infrastructure to process and then rebroadcast the products that are disseminated from them. (Think: downlink-process-uplink and then downlink to consumers). Provided in a SHTF scenario that the satellites weren't taken out - they are completely self contained and just broadcast regardless of what happens on the earth.
lllr_finger 7y ago
I chase storms in my free time, and there are still a lot of areas in the US where Internet connectivity is poor or non-existent. I had an idea for an e-ink powered device that pulled down satellite images like this, but I never got very far with it. Satellite data tells you pretty much everything you would need to forecast at a basic level, especially with the derived soundings.

AuzzieStig 7y ago

A good video regarding this topic https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cjClTnZ4Xh4 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cjClTnZ4Xh4

lwneal 7y ago

The article describes how to receive weather imagery directly from satellites using an SDR. It's a fun project, and surely useful if you don't have Internet access. However, if you do have Internet access, GOES-16 [1] provides a beautiful full-color live feed of the Earth which you can easily download with wget/curl. For example, paste the following: wget $(curl -s https://www.star.nesdis.noaa.gov/GOES/fulldisk.php?sat=G16 | grep -o -e 'https://cdn.star.nesdis.noaa.gov/GOES16/ABI/FD/GEOCOLOR/[0-9]*_GOES16-ABI-FD-GEOCOLOR-1808x1808.jpg' | head -1) -O earth.jpg && open earth.jpg It's fun to use as a live-updating wallpaper or background. [1] https://www.star.nesdis.noaa.gov/GOES/fulldisk.php?sat=G16 https://www.star.nesdis.noaa.gov/GOES/fulldisk.php?sat=G16

shrike 7y ago
Found https://github.com/cameronleger/goes16-background https://github.com/cameronleger/goes16-background, works well.
- app4soft 7y ago
  Good, but it is Python-way ;)
app4soft 7y ago
The only fix to your script is to use `display` command to open image (NOT `open` command).[0] wget $(curl -s https://www.star.nesdis.noaa.gov/GOES/fulldisk.php?sat=G16 | grep -o -e 'https://cdn.star.nesdis.noaa.gov/GOES16/ABI/FD/GEOCOLOR/[0-9]*_GOES16-ABI-FD-GEOCOLOR-1808x1808.jpg' | head -1) -O earth.jpg && display earth.jpg And here is my resulted preview.[1] UPD: Found that this CDN[2] also has static links to latest image, so script could be much more simplified by dropping `curl` and `grep`: wget -c https://cdn.star.nesdis.noaa.gov/GOES16/ABI/FD/GEOCOLOR/1808x1808.jpg -O earth.jpg && display earth.jpg [0] https://www.computerhope.com/issues/ch001720.htm https://www.computerhope.com/issues/ch001720.htm [1] https://i.imgur.com/gFaVvhz.jpg https://i.imgur.com/gFaVvhz.jpg [2] https://cdn.star.nesdis.noaa.gov/GOES16/ABI/FD/GEOCOLOR/ https://cdn.star.nesdis.noaa.gov/GOES16/ABI/FD/GEOCOLOR/
- 7y ago

Mountain_Skies 7y ago

The February 1985 issue of Rainbow Magazine had an program listing for Wefax, which made it possible for owners of the TRS-80 Color Computer to receive weather satellite images using a shortwave radio. This looks like a more advanced version of the same thing. Back then it blew my mind that a home computer could do such a thing. I didn't have a shortwave radio so I never was able to make use of the program. Will have to play with this one, if for no other reason than to fulfill my childhood fantasy of having an at home satellite receiving station. Won't the ladies at my high school reunion be impressed! (Probably not)

blantonl 7y ago
The Wefax pictures you could/can receive over shortwave radio are retransmitted from the satellites over shortwave for Marine interests.

jcims 7y ago

One of the most interesting parts of this exercise to me is seeing the Doppler effect in the frequency of LEO satellites as they pass overhead. E.g.: https://www.reddit.com/r/RTLSDR/comments/7qalaj/visualizing_satellite_doppler_shift/ https://www.reddit.com/r/RTLSDR/comments/7qalaj/visualizing_... It’s also fun to build the absolute sketchiest MacGyver antenna you can imagine and use it to pick up a signal from space.

killjoywashere 7y ago

oh, man, I remember doing this in high school in the 90s (our system was run by one of my favorite teachers. He narrowly missed the Challenger explosion as a finalist of McAuliffe's spot). These satellites just rain information down to Earth. I think we used an HPUX system to ingest and visualize data from the antenna. Definitely something Unixy.

stebann 7y ago

Cool hacking project.

emmelaich 7y ago

Or install the McIDAS suite: https://www.ssec.wisc.edu/mcidas/ https://www.ssec.wisc.edu/mcidas/

donmb 7y ago

Might sound as a stupid question but is it legal to consume and use the images?

jbotz 7y ago
Yes. At least in the case of American satellites. Basically all information produced by the US (federal) Government that is not classified is in the public domain.[1] There are all sorts of weaselly ways that companies and in some cases government agencies try to limit this (for example, West Publishing, the company that publishes laws has copyright on the page numbers which are needed to reference those laws[2]), but in this case we're talking about raw data, transmitted on public airwaves, so there is really no question that it's in the public domain. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Copyright_status_of_works_by_the_federal_government_of_the_United_States https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Copyright_status_of_works_by_t... [2] https://www.wired.com/1994/05/the-law/ https://www.wired.com/1994/05/the-law/