back to article Sentinel Earth-watching sat delivers first snaps

Europe's Sentinel-3A Earth-watching satellite has delivered its first snaps from aloft, two weeks after it impressively thundered upwards atop a Rockot converted intercontinental ballistic missile. A snowy Svalbard archipelago was first to pose for Sentinel's Ocean and Land Colour Instrument (OLCI), as night fell on 29 …

  1. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    I love the colours of the wires in the schematic, it makes the satellite pretty. However the pictures are rubbish. You can't even zoom in and superimpose traffic - even google does that.

    For that money it should build in a jam-cam display as well.

    1. Simon Harris

      But can you see the LOHAN launchpad from there?

      1. Dan 55 Silver badge
        Joke

        If you look closely you can see it with Guardia Civil tape stuck over it.

  2. allthecoolshortnamesweretaken

    I always thought the SPB had a secret underground lair - oh, I get it! The mountaintop HQ is just a decoy! Clever.

    1. John Brown (no body) Silver badge

      It's both. That mountaintop is a cunningly disguised volcano!

  3. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    The weather might be fine for the El Reg Spanish outpost but just north of that in that white band dividing it from France it is damn cold. The older I get the less I like the white stuff on the ground.

    1. Lester Haines (Written by Reg staff) Gold badge

      Very little white stuff here this winter. In fact agreeably mild. That, of course, is a cue for the whole month on March under three metres of snow, slaughtering the livestock to survive, etc, etc.

  4. Graham Marsden
    Happy

    "the Special Project Bureau's Spanish mountaintop HQ"

    Oh come on, that should really be a "stronghold"!

  5. Youngone Silver badge

    Hello? Hello?

    I'm a bit disappointed you didn't come outside and wave at the camera.

  6. Captain DaFt

    A personal observation

    Whe anyone asks why we should risk sending humans to space, just contrast these pictures with these.

    One set shows data, the other set, wonders.

    And those're from a tin can skimming just above the atmosphere!

  7. Anonymous Coward
    Coat

    Just Shows

    The rain in Spain falls mainly on the plain, thank yew, I will be here all next week!

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