Taking photos from orbiting satellites, also known as "tasking," is a practice among many Earth Observation [EO] data providers. After seeing some comments on Twitter, we wanted to outline the value of tasking satellites and how SkyWatch's platform EarthCache can help you take amazing photos on Earth from space. In this article, we'll define tasking, […]
It can be difficult to picture using satellite imagery in different industries, but Earth Observation is a tool that can be used to help solve problems in our world, no matter how abstract. Let's explore how satellite imagery is used in a utility use case. The goal of using satellite imagery in the utility industry […]
At SkyWatch, we believe that Earth Observation should be simple for everyone. If you're a satellite operator, you have unique needs to serve a market of high-value customers. TerraStream is a platform you can leverage to manage, process and deliver your data to a wider market. In addition, we have an aggregation platform called EarthCache […]
So why should you care about TerraStream? Many satellite companies that we talk to, especially the seed-funded early-stage ones, are very entrepreneurial, very smart engineers. They believe they can build anything, and they probably can. The question is, what should they build? When you're building a platform for a satellite constellation, there are many things […]
Connect To Ground Stations A ground station is a physical location with an antenna that allows a satellite operator to downlink the imagery from their satellite after it's been collected. When launching, most companies don't build their own ground stations. Instead, they look for partners who already have large networks of ground stations. These can […]
The Two Resolutions To Focus On Satellite imagery can be very intimidating because there's a wide range of resolutions. And as a new person in the industry, you might be completely overwhelmed. At a high level there are two resolutions we think of in the satellite imagery ecosystem. We think of Spatial Resolution which is […]
The Problems Facing Earth Observation Businesses We've had a chance to speak to a lot of companies in the Earth Observation business. There is number of challenges that they have when they're launching satellites. At SkyWatch we've built a product that solves the problems of: But there are also other problems that satellite operators have. […]
Commercial Real Estate Investments Commercial real estate developers are looking at long time horizons. They're developing buildings that are going to be only in place in a few years, if not decades and hypothetically operational for decades to come. You're looking at a property to ultimately build something on, and you want to make sure […]
Your First Question When Accessing Satellite Imagery “What data do you need?” is probably the first question you'll have when logging onto the EarthCache platform. The first thing to look at is resolution. We offer a varying spectrum of resolutions on the EarthCache platform all the way from low to high resolution. Low resolution is […]
Managing Critical Infrastructure In Oil and Gas Oil and Gas is an industry where old practices are used for a long period of time and new technologies can be difficult to be introduced. However, satellite imagery is one of those technologies being introduced into the Oil and Gas industry and changing how operations are being […]
The shift from mapping to monitoring comes down to the frequency of tasking satellite imagery. Gathering Earth Observation data is a tactic used across industries to help solve some of the world’s biggest problems. From predicting crop yields in agriculture to monitoring oil pipelines, the use cases for satellite imagery are limitless. Mapping is certainly […]
Choosing the right satellite imagery provider for your project can feel overwhelming, but it comes down to your goals and accessing the right features. When seeking a satellite imagery provider, ask yourself critical questions about what type of data you’re looking for. Do you need high-resolution images? Are you looking to collect data in an […]
SkyWatch supports not only a wide range of businesses but, in some cases, we even support hobbyists. Benjamin Pittet, founder of BAP Intel in Switzerland launched his career in private intelligence with a blog, Twitter, and satellite data. Through our platform EarthCache, and our amazing satellite imagery providers, we completed our mission. Together, we made […]
One of the best ways to utilize a multitude of sensors is through a process called Tip and Cue. But what is a Tip and Cue Sensor? Keep reading to learn more.
For over 60 years humans have been putting cameras and sensors into space to look back at our planet. Satellites capture data across the electromagnetic spectrum — from visible wavelengths all the way to radio wavelengths. This is called Earth Observation (EO) data. There are many types of Earth Observation data that have many valuable applications across agriculture, environmental, oil, insurance, and financial services industries.
Now we deliver High Resolution Satellite Imagery. We Wanted To Open Up Access To Black Holes SkyWatch was actually the original name of a piece of software that our founding team built for astrophysicists.
What data do you need? Deciding that satellite imagery is the right solution for your organization is a great first step to getting insightful data at your fingertips. But if you’re new to these solutions, there are some basics you need to know. We at SkyWatch understand the difficulty of navigating the world of Earth […]
A satellite image became available in 1972 when NASA launched the first Landsat mission. The technology has been used for countless commercial, humanitarian, academic, and personal reasons for the past four decades and has over 100 satellites. So we decided to put together a list of the 5 coolest uses for satellite imagery. 5. Developing a […]
With over 400 imaging satellites orbiting our globe, never before has it been more affordable to obtain a bird's eye perspective of Earth. Consequently, analysts have taken full advantage of this access and created multiple innovative ways to utilize satellite images for something other than just its beautiful sight. Even though many industries are gaining […]
Conversations about satellite data are usually geared around a few narrow industries. However, there is much more that can be done with this technology regarding healthcare. For instance, earth-observation imagery can provide insight and information about the wellness of populations on a larger scale. Healthcare entities can benefit from this knowledge and employ proactive strategies […]
Tomasz Stepinski describes himself as a "physicist, astrophysicist, planetary scientist and mathematician." Having spent numerous years in Houston making computer models to map out craters and valleys on Mars for NASA, he accepted the distinguished post of Chair of Space Exploration at the University of Cincinnati's Geography department. Unfortunately, he did not find many admirers […]
Using high-resolution satellite imagery, Peter Fretwell and his team began monitoring animal populations, creating the world’s first census of species taken from space in 2009. Then went on to repeat it. “We started with penguins, then have gone on to look at whales, then seals – we haven’t published much on seals yet. Now, we are working […]
Between November 2015 and April 2016, over 36,000 hectare of forest was burnt in the Republic of Congo. The main commercial activity in the area is the extraction of round wood from areas leased from the national authorities by private companies. These cover an extensive part of forest in the north of the country including […]
Trick question: it depends on what you are trying to do. What does resolution mean? The resolution of Earth observation data is determined by three factors: spatial resolution, spectral resolution, and temporal resolution. While all three have to be considered when looking at satellite data, most people mean "spatial resolution" when they ask about resolution. […]
Particulate matter – also referred to as aerosols or air pollution – are microscopic particles present in Earth's atmosphere. Some occur naturally, during wildfires and volcanic eruptions, and some are the result of human activities, such as car exhausts and powerplants, formed from the chemical reactions of gases such as sulphur dioxide (SO2) and nitrogen […]
Soil moisture estimates can help farmers assess plant health, aid in predicting crop yields, let governments can help alleviate and protect against floodings, measure urban water use for city planners, and more. While ground sensors are the most accurate tools for tracking water, they are costly and difficult to move quickly. Using satellite sources provides […]
Luca Brocca is a Researcher at the Research Institute of Geo-Hydrological Protection (IRPI) of the National Research Council (CNR), a branch of the Italian government dedicated to monitoring and preventing floods, landslides, droughts, and other water-related natural hazards. When not working on real-time predictions for the department of Civil Protection and the local authorities, the […]
52impact brings spatial (satellite, aerial, and drone) information to markets who haven’t been using these types of datasets. The company is working with decision makers in industries who haven’t previously worked with geospatial data. The group leans heavily on close customer relations and data visualization to help bridge the gap between the images and the […]
Policymakers, researchers, and organizations need agricultural statistics to monitor production changes, plan future investments and interventions, and estimate crop outputs. However, poor agricultural data can result in disastrous misallocations of resources and unsuccessful policies, as well as having a dire impact on both populations and farmers. Jacques Delincé, a veteran agricultural statistician and former head […]
SkyWatch is an awesome employer in the Waterloo Region who cares about our people's health and safety, our product, and making sure we are a great place to work at. Read our Business Continuity Plan. We wanted To Ensure Our Employees And Partners Were Safe No more in-person stuff: Everybody works from home. No more events in […]
Earth Observation (“EO”) is the gathering of information about the physical, chemical, and biological systems of the planet Earth through sensors. In the space industry, we’re investing billions of dollars into launching EO sensors into orbit to better understand our dynamic planet through the ever-insightful electromagnetic spectrum. Our mission at SkyWatch is to enable anybody […]
Current methods for locating new sources of uranium are often time-consuming and costly, requiring governments and mining companies to fly aircrafts over large swaths of land in remote areas. But with Earth observation data being more accessible and computers' improved processing power, utilizing satellites to detect features in faraway places has become a much more […]
Commercial access to satellite imagery is possible thanks to solutions like SkyWatch's platform EarthCache, but government agencies use SkyWatch too. For example, in the Prairie Pothole Region (PPR) of the United States and Canada, shallow depressions caused by Pleistocene glaciation interact with mid-continental climate variations to maintain various wetland types. As a result of their […]
In the early 1970s, grey seal populations were nearly extinct in North America. Since then, populations have rebounded. Until a few months ago, there was no accurate count of current populations because the number of animals has grown dramatically in the last few decades. During a project to monitor seal populations with cellphone tags — […]
For over three decades, Synthetic aperture radar (SAR) has been a popular choice for Earth remote sensing. With its high resolution and day-and-night/weather-agnostic monitoring, SAR is utilized in an array of applications - ranging from geoscience and climate research to environmental and Earth system observation, from 2-D and 3-D mapping to 4-D mapping (involving the […]
With the recent heat waves and droughts, an unusually high number of virulent wildfires started in various places of the globe, including Central Africa, Western Canada, the South-West of the United States, and Italy. In this article, we will go over an often-used way to assess the damages caused by the recent series of wildfires […]
The death toll continues to rise in the Bahamas following the most powerful storm to hit the islands in recorded history. While the Bahamas experience hurricanes frequently, Dorian unprecedented strength caused catastrophic damages that will likely take years to repair. The category 5 hurricane flooded airports, rendered roads inaccessible, damaged homes, hospitals, and businesses, and […]
The volume and variety of data gathered from Earth Observation (EO) satellites in orbit today has been increasing at a rapid pace; in 2019, the challenge for users is to attempt to make sense of it. Perhaps though it is not as daunting as it first seems. A new user of EO data doesn’t necessarily […]
There are many sources of satellite data you can use depending on your needs. Some platforms will let you view the data in your browser, some offer download options so you can process it and extract meaningful insights. Some focus on open (free) satellite imagery, some focus on the highest resolution satellite imagery available for […]
Real-time satellite data is a trendy concept and a question that our customers sometimes ask. But real-time satellite data is not what you think it is. As with most high-quality feeds, limitations on data refresh come from transfer speeds and processing speeds. In best-case scenarios, it could take only a few minutes between data capture […]
ShadowBreak is an Intelligence consultancy company that focuses on layering data from a variety of sources to provide multi-Intelligence analysis for their military, governmental, and corporate clients. Both their solutions, ReconLink and TacSight, deliver critical insight for decision makers on vital security issues such as regional conflicts, foreign military combat capabilities, general military intelligence assessments […]
CropSafe is a mobile application that helps farmers monitor the growth of their crops. CropSafe gives farmers information on what is happening in their fields to help them improve their yields, thanks to a combination of up-to-date satellite imagery, sensor data, and machine learning. The application collects data from a variety of sources, including satellite […]
52impact brings spatial (satellite, aerial, and drone) information to markets who haven’t been using these types of datasets. The company is working with decision makers in industries who haven’t previously worked with geospatial data. The group leans heavily on close customer relations and data visualization to help bridge the gap between the images and the […]
AI in space is not just for government officials or the military; it's available to anyone looking to access it. At SkyWatch, we believe in simplicity. We’ve taken a very challenging data engineering problem - obtaining, processing, and standardizing satellite data - and built a platform that abstracts the massive amount of complexity required to […]
Let's break down data transfers. Satellite data collection is extensive, with some of the latest high-resolution optical and radar readings gathering gigabits of information each second. The issue lies in sending this data back to Earth, an act known as a downlink. Unfortunately, current technology has these downlinks occurring on sun-synchronous orbits at limited points […]
Understanding how satellite images are created begins with sensors. Satellite sensors, unlike our eyes, capture much more information and relay it back to us in a format quite different from the photographs we are used to. Satellites capture data by assigning a digital value to each pixel based on the reflectance of the corresponding area […]
Sun-synchronous low Earth orbits Understanding orbits is simpler than one might think. In the same way as consumer cameras, the closer you are to the object you want to capture, the more details you can see. Satellites in Low Earth Orbit (LEO) can capture images of high resolution because they are closer to the object […]
Multispectral and hyperspectral satellites A sensor's spatial resolution, or how fine the pixels on the ground will be, is inversely related to its spectral resolution or how well it can discriminate between spectral bands. Because of this, satellites that record data along multiple spectral bands (hyperspectral) do not have the same spatial resolution as satellites […]
LiveEO uses satellite imagery to provide innovative infrastructure monitoring in the verticals railway, electricity, and pipelines and empowers the operators to save in operational expenses by observing dangers from vegetation, height changes and third party interactions along the network. How LiveEO uses satellite data Sven Przywarra, LiveEO’s co-founder explained that the company focuses on generating […]
Picterra is a self-serve platform enabling businesses to autonomously extract intelligence & analytics from satellite, aerial, and drone imagery. It comes with a ready-to-use IT infrastructure: in a few clicks, it’s possible to process terabytes of imagery with Picterra’s auto-scaling, GPU-enabled infrastructure. With Picterra, a machine learning model can be built in less than 30 […]
I’m thrilled to announce that I’ve joined the SkyWatch leadership team. As I evaluated the opportunity at SkyWatch, several themes emerged indicating this was a rare opportunity with a company ready to scale. SkyWatch has a compelling mission, participates in an enormous growth market, has a winning business model, and a strong management team. The […]
WATERLOO, ONTARIO, June 18, 2021 – Latitude Geospatial Consulting Inc. (“LatGeo”), a Guyana-based geospatial data partner and location technology consultancy, has been selected by SkyWatch Space Applications Inc. (“SkyWatch), to deliver Earth observation data in Guyana. LatGeo provides creative solutions in the areas of location-based technologies and location-based intelligence, using GIS services and spatial data. […]
According to Euroconsult, the global market for commercial Earth observation data and services will reach $8 billion by 2029, up from $4.6 billion in 2019. Understanding when to use satellite imagery over drones is key to making an informed decision when collecting this data type. Here are 5 benefits of using satellite imagery over drones. […]
Colors are just how our eyes interpret light. Light is made of electromagnetic waves. When light shines on an object, some wavelengths are absorbed and others are reflected. The colors we’re able to see are just a small range of reflected wavelengths that can be perceived by our vision. They consist of a tiny visible […]
A remote sensing device, such as a satellite, collects and acquires physical, chemical, and biological information about the Earth. This blog aims to explain how satellites can detect invisible radiation to the human eye. Then, GIS professionals can use various techniques to extract insights from the composite image. For example, a satellite image can visually […]
WATERLOO, ONTARIO, October 20, 2021 – Matidor, a Vancouver-based collaborative geospatial data software providery, has been selected by SkyWatch Space Applications Inc. (“SkyWatch), to deliver Earth observation data via its software solution. Built on an intuitive map-based interface, Matidor delivers real-time project tracking, collaboration, and reporting among users. Matidor’s solution can provide both a broad […]
Orbital Eye monitors critical infrastructure, such as oil and gas pipelines, for third-party interferences, such as construction work and excavations. Traditionally, oil and gas companies used helicopters to monitor their pipelines. Orbital Eye was founded with the vision that traditional aerial inspection methods based on helicopters could be replaced by satellite observation. Orbital Eye’s platform, […]
In honour of Earth Day 2022, we're highlighting the top four coolest ways satellite imagery is being used for environmental monitoring. Tasking satellite imagery goes beyond the image itself; it also collects and measures data to monitor change. Through our solution EarthCache, Earth observation data is easily accessible for organizations wanting to track a geographical […]
A group of Canadian high school students, advised by physics teacher Joe Muise, is from St. Thomas More Collegiate in Burnaby, British Columbia, is poised to represent Canada at the ESA's CanSat competition this month.
