For the past five years, NASA’s Tropical Cyclone Experiment was performed in support of the CyMISS (Tropical Cyclone intensity Measurements from the ISS) project funded by CASIS (Center for the Advancement of Science in Space) which manages the ISS US National Laboratory for NASA. The goal of CyMISS was to acquire image sequences from the ISS 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.
NASA astronaut Jack Fischer of ISS Expedition 52 shown taking photographs of Typhoon Noru inside the ISS Cupola during a CyMISS photography session on August 1, 2017. The fixed-mounted Nikon camera pointed out the window to his left was being used to take the photographs in support of CyMISS. (JSC-NASA)
Because of the technical limitations of such photography even when using our specially desiged photography protocol, performing meaningful, quantitative pseudo-stereo reconstructions of the storms observed is not possible using these images because of the lack of required precision pointing information. But these image sequences have been used successfully to meet the following, more limited objectives:
– Characterize the scene structure near the eye of a tropical cyclone on spatial scales of 100 meters or better.
– Characterize the persistence of scene structure and how it evolves over the course of 100 to 200+ seconds with a temporal resolution on the order of one second.
– Provide realistic image sequences to support the development of pseudo-stereo reconstruction software that will be capable of absolute altitude accuracies of 100 meters.
ISS astronaut photography was the only practical means of providing the data we required. The resolution and imaging rate from weather satellites are too low while commercially provided satellite imagery has more resolution than we require and covers too small an area. While these ISS image sequences could not be used for precision cloud altitude measurements, they were sufficient to create mosaics of the storms being observed as well as stunning 3D images.
During the course of the CyMISS program, we have periodically shared some of the best images we have produced. Now that we are wrapping up this CASIS-funded project, we wanted to present the ten best images from the program based on page views of shared images. Click on the following images to view full-resolution versions. A detailed description of the storm and images can be accessed by clicking on the titles.
#10 Tropical Cyclone Oma – February 20, 2019
This is an anaglyphic 3D mosaic (left eye red, right eye blue) of Tropical Cyclone Oma as seen by moonlight from the ISS at about 17:01 GMT on February 20, 2019. It was created by combining various parts of the 240 1/8th of a second exposure images which have been processed to approximate a common overhead view covering an area of 1,500 by 1,000 kilometers. Click on the image to view the full-size version at a scale of 500 meters/pixel. (A.J. LePage/Visidyne/JSC-NASA)
#9 Typhoon Soulik – August 21, 2018
This is a close-up anaglyphic 3D view (left eye red, right eye blue) of the eye of Typhoon Soulik as it appeared from the ISS at about 22:21 GMT on August 21, 2018. It was created by combining a pair of color images taken five seconds apart which had been processed to approximate a common overhead view covering an area of 225 by 150 kilometers. Click on the image to view the full-size version at a scale of 60 meters/pixel. (A.J. LePage/Visidyne/JSC-NASA)
#8 Post-Tropical Cyclone Gilma – July 31, 2018
This is a color closeup of the powerful lightning strike inside the moonlit remains of Post-Tropical Storm Gilma over the central Pacific. This image, ISS056-E-100802, was acquired by the crew of the ISS at 11:20:25 GMT on July 31, 2018 and provides a view which is about 150 kilometers wide. Click on the image to see a full resolution version of this image. (A.J. LePage/Visidyne/JSC-NASA)
#7 Hurricane Florence – September 14, 2018
Here is a hand-processed, color-corrected version of ISS056-E-162816 taken from the ISS at 11:41 GMT (7:41 AM EDT) on September 14, 2018. The image was taken looking roughly towards the east across Hurricane Florence only 50 minutes after sunrise over the eye of the storm. Click on the image to view the full resolution version. (A.J. LePage/Visidyne/JSC-NASA)
#6 Typhoon Soudelor – August 4, 2015
This is an anaglyphic 3D mosaic (left eye red, right eye blue) of Typhoon Soudelor as seen from the ISS at about 08:01 GMT on August 4, 2015 It was created by combining various parts of a subset of 266 images which have been processed to approximate a common overhead view covering an area of about 1,960 by 860 kilometers. Click on the image to view the full-size version at a scale of 500 meters/pixel. (A.J. LePage/Visidyne/JSC-NASA)
#5 Hurricane Hector – August 8, 2018
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)
#4 Typhoon Atsani – August 19, 2015
This is a close up anaglyphic 3D view (left eye red, right eye blue) of the eye of Super Typhoon Atsani as it appeared from the ISS at about 1:12 GMT on August 19, 2015. 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 225 by 150 kilometers. Click on the image to view the full size version at a scale of 100 meters/pixel. (A.J. LePage/Visidyne/JSC-NASA)
#3 Hurricane Irma – September 10, 2017
This is a close up anaglyphic 3D view (left eye red, right eye blue) of the eye of Hurricane Irma as it appeared from the ISS at about 15:11 GMT on September 5, 2017. 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)
#2 Hurricane Harvey – August 25, 2017
This is a close up anaglyphic 3D view (left eye red, right eye blue) of the eye of Hurricane Harvey as it appeared from the ISS at about 21:23 GMT (4:23 CDT) on August 25, 2017. 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)
#1 Hurricane Matthew – October 7, 2016
This is an anaglyphic 3D mosaic (left eye red, right eye blue) of Hurricane Matthew as seen from the ISS at about 20:06 GMT on October 7, 2016. It was created by combining various parts of the 240 red-channel images which have been processed to approximate a common overhead view covering an area of 1,600 by 1,200 kilometers. Click on the image to view the full-size version at a scale of 500 meters/pixel. (A.J. LePage/Visidyne/JSC-NASA)
The CyMISS team at Visidyne would like to thank the crews of the ISS as well as the staff at NASA’s Marshall Space Flight Center and Johnson Space Center for their efforts over the last five years. The original images are courtesy of the Earth Science and Remote Sensing Unit at NASA Johnson Space Center. The work presented here was supported in part under CASIS Grant UA-2019-013.
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Related Reading
See earlier articles on the CyMISS program here.