[ESIP-all] Looking for recent earth observations of the Tasman Sea

Fri Aug 9 10:09:05 EDT 2013

Unfortunately hi-res optical is the only imaging tool to really have a
chance of picking up wreckage or a vessel that size in distress. Tomnod has
that, to the extent it is possible.

I'm sure it's a long shot, but did the vessel have an automatic
identification system (AIS) transponder?  If so, it may be worth contacting
folks like ExactEarth with satellites that pick up those signals, to at
least get a last known position. This blog post explains the extent of our
capabilities before Envisat died last year, as you can see, the Dona
Liberta is a tiny white speck on radar satellite image, even though it is
much larger than the Nina. Now radar satellite is a very expensive
proposition, and would not pick up vessels so small, let alone a life raft
with no power. Sorry we can't help more and certainly hope they are found
and all is well.

-D

On Fri, Aug 9, 2013 at 6:13 AM, Paul Woods <paul at skytruth.org> wrote:

> Frazmo et al:
>
> Have you folks looked at Tomnod?
>
> http://tomnod.com/nod/challenge/ninarescue2
>
> The've got hi-res imagery form Digital Globe.
>
> Paul
>
> On Aug 8, 2013, at 11:23 PM, frazmo <frazmo at gmail.com> wrote:
>
> It may be a long shot, but the folks at Skytruth might be able to help
> with this issue of the lost ship. See their web site at:
>
> http://skytruth.org/
>
> and the recent article from the Washington Post Sunday magazine, which is
> informative and could be of general interest to the community:
>
>
> http://www.washingtonpost.com/lifestyle/magazine/skytruth-the-environment-and-the-satellite-revolution/2013/07/31/3a1d181a-d52b-11e2-b05f-3ea3f0e7bb5a_story.html
>
> The same kinds of techniques they use to find illegal fishing ships could
> be relevant to the question of what happened to the Schooner SV Niña. Best
> and cheers,
>
> Steve Young
>
>
>
>
> On Thu, Aug 8, 2013 at 9:59 PM, Joe Hourcle <oneiros at grace.nascom.nasa.gov
> > wrote:
>
>>
>> I'm not much of one for observations pointed down from spacecraft.
>>
>> Does anyone know of any near-real-time observations of sufficient spatial
>> resolution to help?
>>
>> (that they're actually allowed to talk about, of course)
>>
>> -Joe
>>
>>
>> Begin forwarded message:
>>
>> > From: Barbara Thompson <barbara.j.thompson at gmail.com>
>> > Date: August 8, 2013 6:26:43 PM EDT
>> > To: Joe Hourclé <oneiros at annoying.org>
>> > Subject: Virtual data pointing in the other direction?
>> >
>> > Joe,
>> >
>> > My friend Ralph is leading a search and rescue effort for a ship that's
>> > been missing on the Tasman Sea.  They were last heard from June 4.
>>  We're
>> > trying to get images from May 28 to the present (emphasis on the earlier
>> > part of that window) to see if we can get any clue of what's happened to
>> > them.  There are 7 people on board - one of the people on the Schooner
>> SV
>> > Niña is Evi Nemeth, author of many famous Unix/Linux sysadmin manuals.
>>  : (
>> >
>> > Google granted us a free license to Google Earth Pro, but it still
>> doesn't
>> > have images that are recent enough.  I wrote Google to see if they could
>> > give us more recent images, but I haven't heard back.  I'm kind of lost
>> > when it comes to Earth-pointed data, but then I realized I have a friend
>> > who is involved in Informatics for the American Geophysical Union.  : )
>> >
>> > Any idea how to get high-res data?  The ship is 70 feet long, so the
>> 1.5-m
>> > resolution stuff in google earth would be fine.  Until we get images,
>> > they're focusing on ocean current models + drift models for other
>> abandoned
>> > ships to help the aerial searchers more clearly refine the expected
>> > location for the ship.
>> >
>> > The ship was fairly well equipped for a 3-week cruise, so it's possible
>> for
>> > them to survive with their supplies + fishing for several months.
>> >
>> > Any advice is appreciated.  We're posting info on the efforts at:
>> >
>> > http://evxx.com/
>> >
>> > Anyhow, if you have any idea how to get high-resolution data over the
>> > Tasman Sea, I'd be very happy to hear it.
>> >
>> > Thanks!
>> >
>> > Barbara
>>
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>>
>
>
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>
>

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