those were the days

Back in the DOS days of computers I was very interested in capturing images from weather satellites. It took special wide band receivers, down converts, low lose feed lines, computer software, and High gain parabolic or crossed dipole antennas. I designed home made antennas that were very critical to ajust. This took place for over two years and was very time consuming but fun. Here is one of my best images:

It is of Hurricane Andrew (1992)


Now in the Windows broadband Internet days you need not buy or build anything as it is provided at the click of your mouse. I admit the images are better but the thrill of receiving the image in real time line by line across your screen direct from the weather satellite is gone. Awh, but those were the days.

Here is an image downloaded today (Sept 1) of Hurricane Gustav:



Hurricane Gustav (pictured) moves across western Cuba and approaches the U.S. Gulf Coast after causing at least 66 deaths in Haiti, 8 more in the Dominican Republic, and 11 in Jamaica.

Click either image to enlarge.
Link to Noaa images:
http://www.goes.noaa.gov/
Unisys Research images:
http://weather.unisys.com/satellite/sat_vis_east.html
NOAA HRPT images:
http://www.noaa-hrpt.com/
wikipedia image of Andrew:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image:Andrew_23_aug_1992_1231Z.jpg