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Editor's Notes
by Hartley Lesser

My apologies to Tim Farrar of TMF Associates. I accidentally activated an article from his firm due to a folder error switch on our server. My apologies, once again, to Tim and to any readers who have read the material, and to the companies listed in the article. Thank you...

And now... this month's issue... we offer an in-depth look at the world of satellite imagery is offered this month. The information we obtained for this highly viable sector of our industry was of megalithic proportions. Unless we were about to publish a book dealing satelite imagery — with the focus on the commercial side — there was absolutely no room for all of the material—in a single issue!

We made the decision to convert one huge article into smaller pieces of content to be more easily digestible, for inclusion in subsequent issues of SatMagazine. Such allows our readers to not be overtaxed with information, and also negates huge “.pdf” downloads if the interest is in the full, downloadable magazine.

Satellite imagery—remote sensing—Earth Observation—whatever you wish to call this environment is an income generator for commercial firms, a definite boon to citizens all around the world, and a life saver. The data captured by a (usually) sun synchronous satellite is converted into sometimes astounding imagery through the use of various software and hardware accoutrements Take, for example, the following two images, courtesy of DigitalGlobe. The first is a natural color, 4-m QuickBird satellite image revealing the wildfires that devastated Romona and Santa Clarita in California in October of 2007.
SoCal fires from QuickBird

The second image is a panchromatic, 50-cm (1.6 foot), high-resolution WorldView-1 satellite image that highlights the site of the 2008 Summer Olympics.
Beijing Olympics via WorldView-1

I would also like to mention the image used in the cover of this month’s magazine, also courtesy of DigitalGlobe, is an image of the northern shore of Kauai. We hope you enjoy this series.