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 images of dozens of storms 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 (ISS044-E-56390) of Super Typhoon Atsani taken by the crew of the ISS at 1:11:33 GMT on August 19, 2015 in support of CyMISS. (NASA-JSC)
May’s Image of the Month is a view of Super Typhoon Atsani as seen from the ISS on August 19, 2015. This storm was among the first intense tropical cyclones to be observed from the ISS using out project’s photography protocol which was specially designed to help create pseudo-stereo views. A total of 360 photographs, like the example shown above and in the Related Video below, were acquired by the crew of Expedition 44 during a six-minute observation session which started at 01:08:00 GMT. At this time, Atsani was located in the western part of the North Pacific at about 152.7° E, 18.7° N and had just been upgraded a Category 4 “Super Typhoon”. A synoptic view created from a mosaic of ISS photographs taken that day is shown below.
This synoptic image shows Super Typhoon Atsani as viewed from the ISS on August 19, 2015 at about 01:12 GMT. Covering an area of 2300 by 1200 km, this mosaic was created by remapping the original 360 color photographs taken by the crew of the ISS to approximate an overhead view before stitching them together. Click on the image to view a high resolution version with a scale of 500 meters/pixel. (A.J. LePage/Visidyne/NASA-JSC)
The Image of the Month is a 3D image created using a pair of close up views of the 50-kilometer eye of Super Typhoon Atsani taken a few seconds apart around 1:11:33 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 before being combined to create an anaglyphic 3D image (a pair of stereo glasses with a red filter over the left eye and a blue filter on the right is required to reproduce the 3D effect). The resulting stereo view, which can be viewed at full size by clicking on the image below, covers an area of 225 by 150 kilometers and clearly reveals the structure in and around the eye of Atsani when the surface winds were at 130 knots (242 km/hr).
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 1:11:33 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)
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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Related Video
Here is a video created using the ISS images acquired by the crew of the ISS of Typhoon Atsani on August 19, 2015 for CyMISS:
Related Reading
See earlier articles on the CyMISS program here.