The goal of the ongoing CyMISS (tropical Cyclone intensity Measurements from the ISS) project is to acquire image sequences of intense tropical cyclones (TCs), such as hurricanes, to support the development of an improved remote sensing method to determine more accurately the strength of these destructive storms using stereoscopy. Funded by CASIS (Center for the Advancement of Science in Space) which manages the ISS US National Laboratory for NASA, this project has amassed a large collection of storm images during the last four years. While a number of processed images have been released to the public over the years through various online and print outlets, the CyMISS team at Visidyne (the prime contractor of the project) wanted to share some of the best images we have been creating.
This is one of the original color photographs (ISS055-E-87594) of the moonlit remains of Alberto taken by the crew of the ISS at 06:50:15 GMT on May 30, 2018 in support of CyMISS. (NASA-JSC)
In the latest phase of CyMISS, our team has begun exploring improvements we can make to our observing techniques as well as new potential applications. One of our investigations involves observing storms at night using moonlight as the source of illumination. June’s Image of the Month is a view created as we attempted to observe over the southeastern United States the remains of what once was Subtropical Storm Alberto – the first named storm of the Atlantic hurricane season. A total of 490 photographs, like the example shown above, were acquired by the crew of ISS Expedition 55 during an extended observation session which started at 06:47:08 GMT over the Great Plains and ended at 06:55:17 GMT over the island of Hispaniola. At this time, the Moon was 15½ hours past full and it had been 1½ days since Alberto made landfall over the Florida panhandle. Alberto had been downgraded to a tropical depression with sustained winds of just 35 mph (56 kph) with rain stretching from the Gulf coast northward towards the Ohio valley. The full sequence of images from this session is shown in the video below. The actual remains of Alberto are fully visible at about the 1:00 mark.
June’s Image of the Month is a mosaic created from this extended sequence of images from the ISS. Covering an area of 4,000 by 1,200 km, it was created by remapping the original 490 color photographs taken by the crew of the ISS to approximate a common overhead view before stitching them together. Clearly visible in this moonlit scene are city lights as well as several storm systems including the remains of Alberto visible about a third of the way across the mosaic from the left. Also visible about halfway into the mosaic is the US Atlantic coast with Florida outlined by its city lights through the breaks in the clouds. In stark contrast to comparatively bright landscape of the US with its many cities and extensive highway system, the eastern half of Cuba and the island of Hispaniola are fairly dark in the early morning hours of May 30.
This mosaic of ISS images from May 30, 2018 covers a swath from the Great Plains of the US, across Tropical Depression Alberto over the southeast to eastern Cuba and Hispaniola. The scene is illuminated by moonlight from above and artificial sources from below. Click on the image to view a high resolution version of this 4,000 by 1,200 km mosaic at a scale of one km/pixel. (A.J. LePage/Visidyne/NASA-JSC)
Here is a lower-resolution map projection of the above mosaic with an overlay of coastlines and state boundaries. Click on image to enlarge. (A.J. LePage/Visidyne/NASA-JSC)
The CyMISS team at Visidyne would like to thank the crew of the ISS as well as the staff at NASA’s Marshall Space Flight Center and Johnson Space Center for their ongoing efforts. The original images are courtesy of the Earth Science and Remote Sensing Unit at NASA Johnson Space Center. The work presented here is supported in part under CASIS Grant GA-2018-272.
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See earlier articles on the CyMISS program here.