Foto Friday – Israel from on high
Every minute of every day, eyes in the sky are watching and recording earth. The resulting images — only a fraction of which are on view to the public — are often incomprehensible and dull to the untrained eye, but sometimes you come across some that are fascinating. For example, this image from the NASA Visible Earth catalogue of a Saharan dust storm covering our region:
Or the beaches of Tel Aviv, as seen from the International Space Station:
It’s s bit shocking to realize the level of detail that satellite photography can achieve. For example, let’s check out the weather, shall we?, courtesy of EUMETSAT, the European Organisation for the Exploitation of Meteorological Satellites.
| Europe-Africa | Middle East |
|---|---|
| Thermal IR (showing clouds) | |
 |
 |
| Visible wavelength | |
 |
 |
More weather information can be found at Israel Weather and more satellite images of Israel can be found at the wonderful Israel Science and Technology Homepage, a great resource.
Israel, as the ninth nation in the world to launch a satellite into orbit (the Ofeq 1 in 1988), has its own storied history of space surveillance — and while many of those stories will remain untold for a long, long time, at least one commercial venture has emerged: SpaceCom, whose Amos satellites provide communications services to a range of TV and radio broadcasters around the world.
The Amos 3 went into orbit last year, and launches are planned for 2010, 2011 and 2012. This image, of the Amos 2 satellite launch in 2003, is testament to the vision and tenacity of its founders — principally Meir Amit, a military hero and former head of Mossad who passed away at the age of 88 and was buried last week. A tribute to Amit can be found here.
Security guards know best
Filed under: Immigrant Moments, Israeliness, Life
As the Israeli winter weather finally blew in this week — just in time for our winter holidays — I gave a mournful goodbye to the sunny weather that’s been with us for so many months, and which made it so easy to head out of the house every day with the stroller and twin babies in tow. Yes, yes, as residents of this dry state, we’re supposed to always lament the lack of rain, particularly during the rainy winter season. And I do. But as a new mother who’s eager to get out of the house every day and be reminded of the world out there, sunny skies are more than helpful toward that end.
But on the first blustery day I decided I wouldn’t be deterred, even though we don’t have a rain cover for our stroller, and I bundled up the boys in fleeces and their BundleMe bags, cozy sleeping bags that keep them protected from all sorts of weather. I had garbage bags under the stroller in case of serious rain, and the hood of the stroller opened, which really kept them protected from the wind. And so I headed out with my mother-in-law for a 15-minute walk to some local stores. When we reached the first store, we walked in and I immediately checked the boys to see if they were at all perturbed by the weather. Trust me, they were snug and dry, and sleeping.
Yet the older man who was the guard sitting at the entrance to the store was not at all happy to see that I had taken two babies outside. Rising from his chair, he came over to me, wagging his finger in my face. “What do you think you’re doing, taking babies outside in this kind of weather?” he admonished. “Shame on you!”
Luckily, I have enough of a sense of humor not to be completely annoyed by what I know is typical Israeli bossiness and in-your-face behavior. I also remembered a story my sister tells, when she took her firstborn — now 22 years old — out of the house on a rainy winter day, and a butcher, wearing his bloody apron and brandishing a bloody knife, came storming out of his shop, waving his knife at her and telling her she should be arrested for taking out a child on a “day like this.”
So I just smiled and walked on. And then I went home and ordered the rain canopy. After all, I hope it’s a rainy winter.
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