Giddierone
Senior Member.
Oooh I wonder what else it captured!
Source: https://space-solutions.airbus.com/imagery/how-to-order-imagery-and-data/archive-preview-tool/
Geolocation Exercises
- Thread starter JFDee
- Start date
Source: https://space-solutions.airbus.com/imagery/how-to-order-imagery-and-data/archive-preview-tool/
deirdre
Senior Member
ok if i take @Landru 's date of the 14th (although google search says we cant really trust earth dates... and my judgement of the shadows using suncalc (which i'll trust whatever @Trailblazer determines), i get 2 possibilities. (removed first one as it has red engines)
(not seeing much on june 13th if i choose the later time.)
shadows
(not seeing much on june 13th if i choose the later time.)
shadows
Attachments
Well assuming the "Acquisition date" is local time (UTC+1 in summer) then it does appear to match G-EZGN. The image is displaced slightly to the west but we are looking at the plane slightly obliquely as we can see the east side of the vertical stabiliser, so that makes sense.
The plane heading doesn't quite seem to match the track either, but if there was a westerly wind then presumably the aircraft would be pointing slightly west of the heading.
The engine colour is a mystery though as @deirdre says. Perhaps it is just very overexposed? I think the faint orange on the front could well be a hint of the orange livery.
PS @deirdre I also dislike the term "beauty spot" but I didn't want to give too much away.
Plenty of air traffic there.
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deirdre
Senior Member
some guy on fb had posted it a while back with the landmarks included
i did an image search.my google earth pro says june 13th and google search says the dates are likely copyright dates not the dates photos taken, so i think someone would have to find the photo archived in the actual satellite to be sure. if colors are washed out it could be lots of different planes including british airways.
what about that "grey" design on the top of the wings? i dont remember seeing that in any contrail photos. is that just because the satellite flattens the photo, do you think? so the white edges are "more 3d" in real life than the middle bit?
Kyle Ferriter
Senior Member.
It would be informative to know what the dates in Google Earth actually mean. The date the imagery was captured, or the date it was aggregated together in a release and published. I would need to dig around a bit more but I can imagine an operating procedure where Google Earth imagery being collected for a particular region/municipality is done over the course of several days, and then all published at once, and the date for the imagery is the published date, not the date it was actually physically recorded by a camera.
Also bright sunlight can definitely lighten the colors that appear on an aircraft.
For example I took this photo of EI-TYC recently from below just before sunset, when the aircraft was at about 41k ft:
Here is the actual color:
Source: https://www.jetphotos.com/photo/11814308
Source: https://www.flightradar24.com/data/aircraft/ei-tyc
Also bright sunlight can definitely lighten the colors that appear on an aircraft.
For example I took this photo of EI-TYC recently from below just before sunset, when the aircraft was at about 41k ft:
Here is the actual color:
Source: https://www.jetphotos.com/photo/11814308
Source: https://www.flightradar24.com/data/aircraft/ei-tyc
deirdre
Senior Member
ah a different colored contails photo! you should post it in one of the contrail or plane threadsFor example I took this photo of EI-TYC recently from below just before sunset, when the aircraft was at about 41k ft:
Kyle Ferriter
Senior Member.
It was taken minutes before sunset, so the sun is pretty horizontal and one contrail is shadowing the other
Giddierone
Senior Member.
I think it means the capture date/time. That image from Airbus is listed as.
The fact that we don't see other aircraft on the same image strip makes me think it's a stitching error / oversight.
Easy Muffin
Senior Member.
Sitrec - https://www.metabunk.org/sitrec/?cu....amazonaws.com/15703/Local/20251016_103835.js
I used a Boeing 737 since I couldn't find an A319 in the model library.
I used a Boeing 737 since I couldn't find an A319 in the model library.
Giddierone
Senior Member.
Is that using the TLE data for the satellite? The image capture says 27 degrees angle of incidence, is that what the sitrec shows?
Pleiades Neo 4
1 49070U 21073E 25289.22456660 -.00000342 00000-0 -36789-4 0 9998
2 49070 97.8952 2.4865 0001160 100.1976 259.9368 14.81672036225244
Easy Muffin
Senior Member.
It's PNeo4, yes. If by that angle they mean the angle between zenith (=0) and the horizon (90°) and converting the satellite's altitude from the screenshot above to nautical miles I get arccos(341/377)=25.2°. Seems close enough given I ignore the curvature of the Earth?
EDIT: Maybe I should stop trying to do things in a hurry... what I mean is I assume that the angle of incidence is the angle between the normal vector from a point on Earth's surface and the line-of-sight between the satellite and that point, meaing it's 0° when the sat is directly overhead and 90° when it's just coming up ocer the horizon.
BTW, that's the TLE as of today, as can be seen by the date field 25292.224.... which flags this set epoch as the 292.224...th day of the year 2025 (i.e., Oct 16). You'll want data that's as close to the time of the image as possible to minimise drift errors. A TLE set from months later is probably not going to be of much use.
Rather surprisingly there's only two places I know of that take this into account, in-the-sky.org (which is free to use, but offers no API) and celestrak.org (which has an API but needs registering). When I need to track a sat myself I use the former, Sitrec AFAIK pulls data from the latter.
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Giddierone
Senior Member.
Confusingly if you put that TLE data into Stellarium for the date/time/location the satellite is visible fairly low on the horizon, which as you point out is probably wrong (coincidence?) because it's old data. Not sure where to get the data for that day from.
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GM4AJK
Senior Member
Sent as a direct message (ST doesn't like it's TLEs shared publicly)
Coming at it a slightly different way, I did a quick search for a few days before and after, looking for any times when one of the Pleiades Neo satellites was well above the horizon and an aircraft approached the satellite-to-ground vector for the pictured aircraft's (projected) location. Probably not surprisingly, G-EZGN is the only one that even got close (within a few meters, which is pretty good given all the uncertainties). Nothing else closer than about a kilometer, which gives some idea of how unlikely it is for such a match to be a coincidence.
Angle from zenith at the ground is indeed about 27 degrees.
Angle from zenith at the ground is indeed about 27 degrees.
deirdre
Senior Member
what times were the satellites in the proper position the days before and after?
no offense but people on MB tend to just say stuff vs providing actual data. i was able to verify the sun angles for myself, but i wouldnt know how to find the satellite positions... so would appreciate it if you share the work youve already done.
No offense but as the identification has been made beyond a reasonable doubt, I'm contributing what I thought was some interesting side information that would probably take quite some time to put together manually, not posting all of the code and underlying data. If someone else wanted to do the same for some reason, they could use their favorite ADS-B source (I used the adsb.lol production files available for download on GitHub), their favorite TLE source (I used Space-Track), and their favorite SGP4 implementation (I used the "official" one). From there it's relatively simple math over a range of time steps with results filtered as desired.
Not surprisingly, the imaging windows tend to happen at around the same time (give or take 30 minutes or so) each day that they happen at all.
Closely related math also leads one straight to another aircraft, right where it should have been imaged at the same time on June 14:
https://globe.adsbexchange.com/?replay=2025-06-14-11:04&icao=3cdf15&lat=51.198&lon=-0.616&zoom=12.8
Giddierone
Senior Member.
Returned with a better camera. Yes, you can clearly see the top of that building from there. Bizarrely my iphone camera couldn't make out the blue crane, which I think must have been lifting a piece of glass that was glinting in the sun.
deirdre
Senior Member
i just asked for the times and dates the satellite was overhead in the right position.
deirdre
Senior Member
Closely related math also leads one straight to another aircraft, right where it should have been imaged at the same time on June 14:
thats interesting. it didnt turn its engines or backend pure white. of course it seems to have erased the engines and backend completely!
jarlrmai
Senior Member.
Source: https://old.reddit.com/r/UFOs/comments/1oh5ueg/satellites_or_drones_orrrr/
Can you geolcate this sculpture? I thought it was easy, but 5-10 mins and I couldn't find it.
External Quote:
Mendel
Senior Member.
1:25
shouldn't the position be at thd center of the flight tracker map?
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GM4AJK
Senior Member
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ah well done @Creamy Pasta . I had hypothestisd that it was near the airport but couldnt quite find it.
jarlrmai
Senior Member.
So it's from inside the carpark looking out, great work!
A plane flies past and is on ADSB but it does a loop and comes back into the FOV (towards the Starlink flares) and I can't make sitrec fit for the plane direction and lights...
https://www.metabunk.org/sitrec/?custom=https://sitrec.s3.us-west-2.amazonaws.com/11433/Reddit starlink plane_/20251027_131645.js
A plane flies past and is on ADSB but it does a loop and comes back into the FOV (towards the Starlink flares) and I can't make sitrec fit for the plane direction and lights...
https://www.metabunk.org/sitrec/?custom=https://sitrec.s3.us-west-2.amazonaws.com/11433/Reddit starlink plane_/20251027_131645.js
The adsb track seems very noisy but this is pretty close.
https://www.metabunk.org/sitrec/?cu...857/Reddit starlink plane_/20251027_140244.js
I think it is a rearward facing white light on the starboard wing combined with digital artefacts. The green is only visible from in front of the aircraft (for some aircraft).
Giddierone
Senior Member.
Where did I film this today? Can you identify the aircraft? [has to be viewed fullscreen in HD]
Source: https://youtu.be/C0JAjH9upY0
Source: https://youtu.be/C0JAjH9upY0
Pretty sure the aircraft is ZM413 with callsign PALMTREE44 and the area is the Scottish Borders.
https://www.flightradar24.com/data/aircraft/zm413#3cdeff48
Video was published at Wed, 29 Oct 2025 11:24:02 GMT , so it was probably recorded around 11am.
https://www.flightradar24.com/data/aircraft/zm413#3cdeff48
Video was published at Wed, 29 Oct 2025 11:24:02 GMT , so it was probably recorded around 11am.
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Given the low altitude I am guessing it was somewhere in the gaps in coverage.
The Flight Radar 24 ADSB track is better.
Giddierone
Senior Member.
That's amazing! There must have been people driving on the A7 who saw this fly right over them at 1350ft. I've never seen an aircraft of that size fly that low here.
Havent worked out the exact location you were filming from yet. The time of the video would help
Giddierone
Senior Member.
10:56Havent worked out the exact location you were filming from yet. The time of the video would help
Any idea why it was flying so low?
EDIT: when I try to line it up in GE it doesn't draw enough of the landscape in the distance to make a good match. The best I could get was the flight track appearing to be above the horizon, when it was clearly below it.
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I just recorded this video that shows the green starboard light become white as it transitions from flying towards me to flying away from me. Bonus points if anyone can geolocate me or ID the aircraft.
Giddierone
Senior Member.
Giddierone
Senior Member.
So, G-CTSM at the start of this track around 17:40? https://www.flightradar24.com/data/aircraft/g-ctsm#3cf669f1
Giddierone
Senior Member.
Yes, just a you said, about 5.40pm.
Giddierone
Senior Member.
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