Google Sightseeing takes you on tour of the world as seen from satellite, using the free Google Earth program, or Google Maps in your web browser. Each weekday your guides James and Alex present new weird and wonderful sights as suggested by readers.

The editors: James & Alex

Empire State Building

Thursday, 7th April 2005 by James

There’s loads of cool things to find in Manhattan, but this shot of the Empire State Building is probably the best. The photo is at quite an angle so you can see a lot of the building. Also, over to the West, you can easily spot Madison Square Garden; it’s the big circle.

Empire State Building

13 Responses to 'Empire State Building'

  1. 1. John Reiser says:

    When the photograph is clear down to the highest resolution/zoom, you’re looking at an aerial photograph. The very grainy areas are taken from satellite. Satellites can only achieve a resolution of 30 feet per pixel, I believe. The aerial photographs you’re viewing in New York City and the entire state of New Jersey are likely 1 foot size.

  2. 2. Barton says:

    Oooo, makes me feel like I’m standing on my head. Is this what it feels like to live in Australia? :)

  3. 3. Chong says:

    Actually, some of the new government sattelites can determine an object the size of a softball.

  4. 4. John Reiser says:

    Actually, some of the new government sattelites can determine an object the size of a softball.

    I’d like to know where you heard that.

    GPS devices can determine where you are within a few centimeters because of the coded signal you receive. But if you are trying to observe something from space using only the radiated energy, you won’t be able to get a clear lock on the object. Even satellites that beam radiation to the surface and record the reflected signal are subject to the interference in the Earth’s atmosphere that make what you speak of impossible.

    Unless I misinterpretted what you meant, or if something new came out within the last year, I highly doubt what you claim as actually being feasible.

  5. 5. pastanous says:

    the IKONOS, Quickbird & OrbView-3 satellites can get a spatial resolution of 1m in the panchromatic band, and 4m in the multispectral bands. These sensors are commercial, owned by private companies, and sell imagery..

    The gov’t classified stuff can resoove the stitching on a baseball..THE STITCHING…yes, that’s intense…

  6. 6. pastanous says:

    …oh, but yes, the hi-res imagery on this site is digital aerial imagery, NOT satellite imagery. The imagery for New Jersey is 2ft. resolution taken in spring 2002. Google doesnt allow you to zoom in far enough to *realize* the full resolution capabilities of the hi-res stuff..

  7. 7. John Reiser says:

    pastanous, how do you know it’s 2002, besides comparing whats-built-whats-not on the images? Is it listed anywhere on Google’s site? I’m just curious if they got them from the same source as the false color images on the State’s site.

  8. 8. Smart Ass says:

    Hello you ignorants (no offense!), FYI:

    1. IKONOS and OrbView are 1m (panchromatic) / 4m (multispectral) resolution.
    2. QuickBird is 60 cm (panchromatic) / 2.4m (multispectral) resolution.
    3. What various governments/military agencies can do with their satellites, I have no idea. But very probably they have even higher resolution sensors at their disposition.
    4. Therefore, satellite sensors already come very close to aerial photography nowadays, however without being able to completely substitute it for precision mapping purposes yet.
    5. They MIGHT have used aerial photos in places, but if you care to look in the lower right of the map window, you will see that DigitalGlobe and
    Earthsat are credited all the time (i.e. most of Google Map is made up of satellite imagery, incl. the imagery of Manhattan).

    (Most of these facts should be easily researchable on the Internet in no more than 5 minutes.)

  9. 9. D. Danno says:

    Quite nice. I can easily locate my abode proximate to the hidious Port Authority on 8th Ave and 40 - 42nd St.

  10. 10. kab00mz says:

    Heyy!!! I want to see more maps, like.. where do i go in google?

  11. 11. jesse says:

    Kab, they only have satelite imagry for the usa right now

  12. 12. chinkman says:

    dis iz confuzing……………………………………………………………………………..

  13. 13. OSAMA BIN LADEN says:

    I LIVEON 111 BOKA NOCKA ST

Leave a Reply

This form will auto-link URLs or you can use simple HTML, <a href="http://googlesightseeing.com">Like this</a>.

Link to specific places either as a Google Maps page or a decimal latitude and longitude written like this: lat/lng:55.949400,-3.200000.

If you've found an unrelated sight that you think should be posted in its own entry then use the suggestion form!