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 and typhoons, 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 that we wish to share. One of the TCs observed in support of CyMISS by the crew of the ISS in 2018 was the Pacific storm, Hurricane Hector, as it brushed the Hawaiian Islands.
This is one of the original color photographs (ISS056-E-130240) of Hurricane Hector taken by the crew of the ISS at 22:31:31 GMT on August 8, 2018 in support of CyMISS. The Hawaiian Islands are visible through the clouds in the lower left. Click on image to enlarge. (NASA/JSC)
May’s Image of the Month is a 3D synoptic view of Hurricane Hector created using images from a sequence of 240 photographs, like the one shown above, taken by the crew of the ISS during an overpass on August 8, 2018. When the four-minute photography session started at 22:29:01 GMT, Hector was located at about 16.6° N, 155.7° W in the Pacific Ocean about 360 kilometers south of Hawaii. The weakening hurricane was rated as a Category 3 storm with sustained winds of about 185 kph (115 mph). While storms of this strength frequently stretch well over 1,000 kilometers, Hurricane Hector was a fairly compact tropical cyclone about 650 kilometers across. In order to create this anaglyphic 3D image (left eye red, right eye blue), the individual photographs from the original image sequence were remapped to approximate an overhead view before various parts of the frames were stitched together into a synoptic 3D mosaic covering an area of approximately 1,200 by 900 kilometers. A high resolution version of this synoptic 3D mosaic with an image scale of 500 meters/pixel can be viewed by clicking on the image below. The Hawaiian Islands are visible at the top of the image just to the right of center. The clouds of Hurricane Hector stand far above those not associated with the storm.
This is an anaglyphic 3D mosaic (left eye red, right eye blue) of Hurricane Hector as seen from the ISS at about 22:32 GMT on August 8, 2018. It was created by combining various parts the 240 images which have been processed to approximate a common overhead view covering an area of about 1,200 by 900 kilometers. Click on the image to view the full-size version at a scale of 500 meters/pixel. (A.J. LePage/Visidyne/JSC-NASA)
While the eye of this storm looks quite subdued, there is actually much structure present in an enhanced, closeup view. A closeup 3D image was created using a pair of raw, 12-bit/color-plane images of the 30-kilometer eye of Hurricane Hector taken a few seconds apart around 22:30:54 GMT. Only the red channel of the original color images was used in order to cut through any atmospheric haze and maximize the visibility of the cloud features. These images were remapped to approximate an overhead view and had their contrast stretched before being combined to create an anaglyphic 3D image. The resulting bonus 3D image, which can be viewed at full size of 100 meters/pixel by clicking on the image below, covers an area of 150 by 100 kilometers.
This is a close up anaglyphic 3D view (left eye red, right eye blue) of the eye of Hurricane Hector as it appeared from the ISS at about 22:30:54 GMT on August 8, 2018. It was created by combining a pair of red-filtered images taken a few seconds apart which had been processed to approximate a common overhead view covering an area of 150 by 100 kilometers. Click on the image to view the full size version at a scale of 100 meters/pixel. (A.J. LePage/Visidyne/JSC-NASA)
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 UA-2019-013.
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See earlier articles on the CyMISS program here.
These are outstanding. As a meteorologist, forecaster and oceanogrpaher, being able to view the structure of these events to observe these events gives me better insight into my job. The more 3D satellite imagery that I observe the more I learn about the dynamics of the atmosphere. It is such a power tool.