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bobaenthusiast wrote:I'm considering picking up this event, but everything seems pretty overwhelming so far - so many acronyms!! It would be SUPER helpful if someone could suggest somewhere to start from, or what kind of background information is helpful to have ))

(for context, i'm a freshman - so no science courses yet - on a R E A L L Y competitive team with experience only in inquiry events and ecology LOL)

Dont worry too much about not understanding the event. It is extremely intricate and the vast majority of competitors who have competed in it dont truly understand it at all. My partner and I didnt really understand the event properly until about February yet we still placed at various competitions. When you finally do understand it though, its pretty great

I am new to Remote Sensing for Division C, and I have a question regarding the rules.
For section ii, AKA "Interpretation of remote sensing images and data sets from the following satellites: (insert a bunch of satellite titles)", I have taken extensive notes for each satellite, but that's basically it. Do I need to put extremely detailed information for each satellite or is just the basic info good enough? The information I've already taken goes pretty in depth, like it's altitude or the amount of spectral bands for some of them. Of course, I have their functions and stuff as well. Or am I taking a completely wrong approach? I honestly can't tell anymore LOL
Thanks in advance!

skiski wrote:I am new to Remote Sensing for Division C, and I have a question regarding the rules.
For section ii, AKA "Interpretation of remote sensing images and data sets from the following satellites: (insert a bunch of satellite titles)", I have taken extensive notes for each satellite, but that's basically it. Do I need to put extremely detailed information for each satellite or is just the basic info good enough? The information I've already taken goes pretty in depth, like it's altitude or the amount of spectral bands for some of them. Of course, I have their functions and stuff as well. Or am I taking a completely wrong approach? I honestly can't tell anymore LOL
Thanks in advance!

Questions about the satellites themselves are fairly common on tests, but the rules are referring to specific data sets that come from those satellites. A lot of data is available online for free if you wanna check it out.

Private Wang Fire wrote:

skiski wrote:I am new to Remote Sensing for Division C, and I have a question regarding the rules.
For section ii, AKA "Interpretation of remote sensing images and data sets from the following satellites: (insert a bunch of satellite titles)", I have taken extensive notes for each satellite, but that's basically it. Do I need to put extremely detailed information for each satellite or is just the basic info good enough? The information I've already taken goes pretty in depth, like it's altitude or the amount of spectral bands for some of them. Of course, I have their functions and stuff as well. Or am I taking a completely wrong approach? I honestly can't tell anymore LOL
Thanks in advance!

Questions about the satellites themselves are fairly common on tests, but the rules are referring to specific data sets that come from those satellites. A lot of data is available online for free if you wanna check it out.

Agreed, the rules in that part are specifically saying you have to interpret images and data, so although you will get plenty of questions on tests about altitude and other aspects like this (I've seen tests with, like, a whole stream of multiple choice questions where the options are the A-train satellites), for this particular part of the rules, what you want to do is practice looking at photos or other data from those satellites, trying to figure out what it shows, and then reading descriptions and other people's analysis to find out what you missed or got wrong. You can know all about the different spectral bands of a satellite in theory but it's very different to actually see an image composed of data from those bands, and so on.

Is it Wein's Law, or Wien's Law? The rules spell it -ei-, but almost every source I've found has it -ie-.

Alex-RCHS wrote:Is it Wein's Law, or Wien's Law? The rules spell it -ei-, but almost every source I've found has it -ie-.

I'm pretty sure it's Wien's Law, probably a typo in the rules.

I know this may be a really stupid question, but I'm an EXTREME newbie for this event. Can someone explain what bands are?

geniusjohn5 wrote:I know this may be a really stupid question, but I'm an EXTREME newbie for this event. Can someone explain what bands are?

In spectroradiometry, a spectroradiometer is an instrument that measures the amount of incident spectral energy incident to the instrument. However, the instrument will measure the energy in only specific regions of the spectrum, termed "bands". For example, the Landsat Enhanced Thematic Mapper Plus (ETM+) measures in eight bands. Each of those bands represents a narrow range of the spectrum that detectors will detect radiation in.

whythelongface wrote:

geniusjohn5 wrote:I know this may be a really stupid question, but I'm an EXTREME newbie for this event. Can someone explain what bands are?

In spectroradiometry, a spectroradiometer is an instrument that measures the amount of incident spectral energy incident to the instrument. However, the instrument will measure the energy in only specific regions of the spectrum, termed "bands". For example, the Landsat Enhanced Thematic Mapper Plus (ETM+) measures in eight bands. Each of those bands represents a narrow range of the spectrum that detectors will detect radiation in.

Yep, just like how people's eyes only see the light wavelengths we refer to as "visible", an instrument on a satellite can also only detect certain wavelengths of light. It might have one detector for blue light, one for short-wave infrared light, etc, and each of those is a different band, telling us different information because different features on earth emit or reflect light of that wavelength.

So does anybody have any tips for studying? Such as plans, what and how exactly to learn and study the material, what to use for my notes on test day, etc? I'm completely new to this event and I notice that I'm being BOMBARDED with a ton of information that's almost seems like a foreign language to me? If anyone could help, I'd greatly appreciate it. Thanks.