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Re:Stealth bomber in flight on Google Maps by myself248 on Monday December 20, 2021 @04:18PM (#29630419)
The cars aren't flying at altitude though. They're farther from the satellite.
Re:Stealth bomber in flight on Google Maps by contravariant on Monday December 20, 2021 @04:28PM (#29630531)
How low are these satellites? I wouldn't expect the altitude of a plane to be any significant proportion of the altitude of a satellite.
Re:Stealth bomber in flight on Google Maps by natosaichek on Monday December 20, 2021 @05:31PM (#29631266)
The satellites are probably greater than 400 km altitude, or so, while the plane is probably 10 km. The plane is in the same rough order of magnitude as really tall mountains, which the satellite is presumably designed to compensate for, so I agree with your general assessment.
Re:Stealth bomber in flight on Google Maps by tech_timc on Monday December 20, 2021 @06:13PM (#29631734)
The Google Maps image copyright is for Maxar, which means the collector is likely Worldview-3, which is at nominally 614 km above the Earth.

https://earth.esa.int/eogateway/missions/worldview-3

Re:Stealth bomber in flight on Google Maps by willis936 on Monday December 20, 2021 @07:35PM (#29632355)
The shadow is 750 m away and the sun is about 15 degrees off noon, so the B2 altitude is roughly 3 km. Cousin comment says the satellite altitude is 614 km, so I wouldn't expect parallax effects to be dominant. This is also evidenced by the fact that both the plane and ground are in focus and the plane is measured to be 70 feet long in google maps, which is what it is specified to be in reality.
Re:Stealth bomber in flight on Google Maps by exabrial on Monday December 20, 2021 @05:33PM (#29631297)
That bomber is also likely quite low, since it's based out of an air force base in that area.
Re:Stealth bomber in flight on Google Maps by myself248 on Monday December 20, 2021 @05:44PM (#29631447)
Sure, but when the word "calibrate" comes up, you want to account for even the not-very-significant factors.